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Laws to curb bankers' bonuses and give new rights to NHS patients will be at the heart of next week's pre-election Queen's Speech.
Gordon Brown has drawn up a slimmed-down list of Bills to be rushed through Parliament in time for an election that MPs expect to be held on 6 May next year.
Other measures will include legislation obliging the Government to cut the Budget deficit in half over four years and setting out job-creation schemes, both designed to reassure voters that Labour is driving the economy towards growth and prosperity.
But several flagship Bills are being dropped altogether from a legislative programme that will have to be squeezed into 40 sitting days of Parliament. They include an Electoral Reform Bill, which would have introduced an Australian-style voting system.
The long-awaited Bill to introduce elections to the House of Lords will be announced, but serious work on it will not happen before the election because of the danger that arguments would bog down Parliament in its final weeks.
“Today people are rightly demanding more, not less from public services,” Schools Minister Ed Balls said. “That's why, in next week's Queen's Speech, we will set out new entitlements that pupils, parents and patients can expect from schools and hospitals.”
He said Labour was capable of a big poll come-back and he detected “no enthusiasm for a Tory government”.
Future Bill
Financial Services Bill: will give regulators powers to rein in bonuses and tie payments to claw-back deals.
Crime and Policing Bill: tougher penalties for knife crime.
Social Care Bill: free personal care at home for needy elderly people.
Fiscal Responsibility Bill: will give legal force to Labour's pledge to halve the deficit in four years.
NHS Bill: maximum waiting times for surgery and cancers referrals.
Education Bill: giving parents rights such as to one-to-one tuition if their children are falling behind.
Lords Reform Bill: plans for an 80 per cent elected Upper House, possibly rising to 100 per cent
Reader views (14)
limit bonuses?...... why not try to limit/monitor total compensation and the 'creative' ways certain UK clearing Banks currently pay their 'hard working' rip-off merchants in the Investment Banking arms.More importantly isnt it about time the regulators examined how the profits are REALLY made.......let the Banks make the money from their idiotic client base but tax them at 60% for the priveleage of making it at virtually minimal risk to themselves.
- Anon, london, 13/11/2009 15:34
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and which part of the speech referred to curtailing MPs excessive and fraudulent expense claims?
- Marianne, SW France/London, 13/11/2009 12:50
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So another Labour manifesto of fear, punishment and gimmicks. There is nothing new there then!
Why can’t this government propose something a little more positive and dare I say, useful?
- David, London, 13/11/2009 12:43
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Well yet another part of the economy goes to the dogs. Expect your pensions to be less productive, expect lower interest on savings and higher rates on interest paid for loans and mortgages.
Yes bankers actually to provide a service that makes the average persons live a little better. By penalising bankers through legislation the cream will leave and you will be stuck with less effective people that settle for lower rewards because they have less to offer.
Well you have made your bed on this one and soon you will be wallowing in the results.
- James, City of London, 13/11/2009 12:08
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Oh Ye of little faith.the Tories will not win the next election on their nonentity/showmanship policies.The truth will out they are a shambolic party who are unfit to govern our country with their xenophobic ideals about Europe
This Country needs a party or parties to be at the heart of Europe if we are to compete against the likes of BRAZIL.CHINA and Indfia inthe future.
Little Englanders canot or should not hark back to the past in this situation as the TORY party are always doing .
I for one will be voting Labour at the next General Election .
- Denis Regan, harbin china, 13/11/2009 12:08
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"“Today people are rightly demanding more, not less from public services,” Schools Minister Ed Balls said. “That's why, in next week's Queen's Speech, we will set out new ENTITLEMENTS that pupils, parents and patients can expect from schools and hospitals."
Thats Britain under Labour. Yes of course we want our public services to work. But under Labour its all to do with entitlement and nothing to do with responsibility. You can be sure that under Labour these entitlements, that will extend irrespective of personal responsibility and to hoards of immigrants, will come at great cost to the hardworking taxpayer and at great benefit to the overpaid apparatchik bureaucrats that will be asked to implement them.
- Andrew, Hampton Hill, 13/11/2009 12:08
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You forget the Labour postal vote system condemned as 'childish to defraud'. As Labour Ministers say 'it does benefit us'!
The key to getting the economy going is stimulating demand. China has a $360bn stimulus package with vouchers for cars, fridges, meals, hotels. The US has $5bn car-scappage scheme. The UK's sole element to stimulate demand is a £400m car-scrappage scheme.
Brown and Darling threw all our money into banks, saying it will 'trickle down'. It has trickled from bank debt into taxpayer debt! No benefit to the UK! Perhaps Brown plans to bust all middle and better off, then they have to vote for him as they join the welfare claimants.
Brown failed by blocking the original Llyods bid for Northern Rock, that would have stopped many problems.
He has instead loaded us with more debts than ever in history, vast sums of PFI off-balance sheet. Now, like all socialists, he is running out of other people's money.
Brown and Darling say the UK is still deep in recession, when all others have been out for 6 months, despite Brown's boasts of 'the UK is better placed than all our competitors'. So they claim the continued recession is reason to continue their actions. Surely it proves the opposite!
- Jimmy, bradford, 13/11/2009 12:07
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What’s next on Broon and Mandelspin’s little book of populist policies which will never happen?
1, Ashes back on free-to-air…check
2.1 Limit the greedy bankers…check
2.2 Penalise borrowers who sign up for mortgages which they know they can't repay which of course is at the root of the banking crisis…ohhhh noooo, can’t do that, not populist enough
3 Come round to everyone’s house and cook dinner for them, spag bol okay?
4 Give everyone in the UK a 5 minute shoulder massage?
5 Cut public spending and increase taxes to get the country out of the hole Labour has thrown us into? Oooooh noooo, give me populist policies over prudence every time!
- St, London, 13/11/2009 11:26
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What about Civil Service bonuses?Under Brown everyone is equal except some are more equal than others!
- Tojo, Hythe Kent, 13/11/2009 11:19
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Lets get this Mr Brown. You want to limit bonuses for say HSBC and Barclays who never took taxpayer money and the support for the failed banks was partly due to the FSA/Treasury failure to safely regulate? The printing money is down to wanting to win the General Election. What you will do is hurt the City of London, if people make fair profits why should they not be rewarded.
Look out for Australian-style voting system meaning those failing to vote will be fined!!
- Andrew, London, 13/11/2009 10:37
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Roz, people are also criticising MPs for having other jobs and insisting that they curb these. It's one or the other.
- Jack, Giantshire, 13/11/2009 10:16
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Lords Reform Bill: plans for an 80 per cent elected Upper House, possibly rising to 100 per cent - Elected by whom? I guess that means Brown and co plan to install their cronies before the next election.
- Susie, London, 13/11/2009 09:54
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What, at the same time as MPs are demanding a NON-performance-related pay-rise?
(Before everyone leaps down my throat at how little they are paid: it is way more than most people earn and they needn't have applied for the job if they didn't like the salary it came with. In days of yore, incidentally, they earned their money elsewhere and did the job of MP FOR FREE - hence people with talent ran the country, not career-politicians!)
- Roz, France, 13/11/2009 09:44
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Gormless Brown to limit bonuses paid to his old cronies in the City?
Pigs might fly.
- Reuben Camara, Plot 1, Morecambe Compound, EUSSR, 13/11/2009 09:07
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