While offices nationwide begin winding down for Christmas, there is no rest in Westminster as the Houses attempt to push through several substantial pieces of legislation.
This includes the Online Safety Bill which was debated last week in Parliament and Audley covered in detail here. Striking the balance between the protection of children and protecting individual rights online has been a challenge for MPs and it will likely face amendments in the Lords once it completes the Commons stages.
The sprawling Financial Services and Markets Bill, which was first introduced to the Commons in July and completed its committee stage in nine sittings on November 3rd, is now in its report stage. The Bill, which was debated in Parliament last week, will seek to repeal EU rules over the British financial services industry. It will give the FCA greater responsibility to set requirements for financial services companies, and require it to promote growth and competitiveness in the sector.
And finally, the Levelling Up Bill will return this week on Tuesday. The flagship Bill has caused this Government several headaches and there have been subsequent concessions on compulsory housing targets and onshore wind farms to push it through.
- Strike out. It has been reported that Ministers will hold an emergency Cobra meeting amid a wave of strikes. This will be to discuss contingency plans for upcoming strikes, including using the military and civil servants to cover Border Force staff and armed forces will also be deployed to hospital trusts ahead of an ambulance strike. Cabinet Office minister Oliver Dowden, who will chair the meeting on Monday, has urged unions to call off the "damaging" strikes. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said in PMQs that he will introduce "new tough" anti-strike laws, but this is yet to be seen. The Transport Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill is not on the parliamentary roster this week. This will remove the trade unions' immunity from being sued for damages if they fail to maintain a minimum service during industrial action.
- Cat-calling crackdown. Under new plans backed by the Home Secretary, sexual harassment on the street will be made a crime with jail sentences of up to two years. The government will now back legislation tabled by former business secretary Greg Clark who said the intention of the bill is "to reinforce a change in the culture that establishes that it is completely unacceptable to abuse women in the streets". This will include criminalising deliberately walking closely behind someone as they walk home at night, making obscene or aggressive comments towards a person, making obscene or offensive gestures towards a person, obstructing a person's path and driving or riding a vehicle slowly near a person making a journey. The plans have received cross-party support with Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper welcoming the move.
- BMA bites back. Amid health workers taking strike action this week, the Telegraph ran the headline ‘Labour vows war on health unions’, which was a surprise to many, not least the Shadow Health Secretary, Wes Streeting who tweeted as much. However, whether the headline was accurate or not, Streeting has set a new tone for Labour. In a departure from Labour’s pro-union position, he warned that the NHS was “a service, not a shrine” and that a Labour government could not afford the pay rises nurses are seeking. He also targeted the doctors’ union the British Medical Association (BMA) specifically, which he says rejects Labour’s plan to implement better standards and increased GP access for patients (Labour would also fund training for 7,500 new doctors). In his words: ‘Whenever I point out the appalling state of access to primary care, where currently a record two million people are waiting more than a month to see a GP, I am treated like some sort of heretic by the BMA’. These comments have provoked anger among doctors, the BMA and MP Sam Tarry who did not hold back with his comments on LBC. Given the support Labour receives from Trade Unions, the strength of Streeting’s comments is puzzling to many – such as Dr Emma Runswick from the BMA who expressed disappointment and said that ‘the solution is not to attack the staff, the solution is to attack the Government.’
- Watchdog war. It has been reported by the Times that the Department of Health and Social Care will be taking the government’s own transparency watchdog to court to block the release of a document setting out what lessons it learnt from its pandemic failures. The department has been blocking a Times request for the report since August 2021. Earlier this year, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) had agreed with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which regulates government transparency, that it would finally release it. However, last week the department performed a U-turn, and filed a legal appeal against the ICO to block the report’s release. It is predicted that cases such as this can cost the taxpayer up to ￡130,000 in legal fees each time and it has provoked cross-party ire. A decision will now be taken by a judge on whether the information should be disclosed, likely next year, as the formal inquiry into the pandemic kicks off.
- SNP shuffle. Last week Stephen Flynn made his first appearance at PMQs as the SNP Westminster leader. He has since been forced to defend himself against allegations that he had plotted to oust his predecessor, Ian Blackford who was a close ally of SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon. Since the change, several MPs have since resigned from the SNP's front-bench team, including Pete Wishart, the agriculture spokesman who slammed Flynn in an open letter for allegedly "canvassing opinion for a leadership challenge" before Blackford’s departure. As the Telegraph put it, ‘in the context of modern British political discourse, this might look like a polite and moderate criticism; in SNP ranks, it is the equivalent of swatting a rival’s face with a glove’. Some say this is all a sign that Sturgeon’s authority over the party is weakening, with Alison Thewliss, her preferred successor, failing to take on the role. Following the frontbench resignations by Blackford supporters last week, Flynn named his new team, with demotions for various senior MPs, including Thewliss. According to Sturgeon and Flynn, there is no substance to reports of infighting and a supposed feud between the doubt, but there is no doubt change afoot in within the SNP ranks.
WHAT AUDLEY IS READING & LISTENING TO TODAY:
