A new session of Parliament has opened and been marked formally by the Queens Speech in Westminster earlier today (10 Dec).An Australian points-based immigration system, a new Employment Bill and a national skills fund were among the legislative priorities announced.

Responding to the Governments education funding announcement in the Queens Speech, Cllr Judith Blake, Chair of the Children and Young People Board said:

All children deserve access to the best possible education.

The Governments announcement of an increase in schools budgets by 7.1 billion will help give certainty up to 2023, and an additional 780 million for council high needs budgets to support children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) for next year is good news.

Councils and government now need to work together and take advantage of councils' position in the community enabling them to work closely with all local schools. Councils are uniquely placed with up to date local knowledge to ensure funding is distributed fairly and takes account of local needs and priorities.

By empowering local government to have a leading role in decisions for all types of schools, including free schools and academies, and retaining some flexibility to agree with schools a local funding formula, this will produce the best possible outcomes for schools and pupils.

Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union, said:

Boris Johnson's new Government has the opportunity in this Queens Speech to right the wrongs of successive Conservative-led Governments.

Promises made during the election campaigning on school funding must be acted upon. Thanks to the pressure applied by the NEU, the School Cuts coalition, parents and others, the Conservatives promised a partial reversal of real terms cuts made since 2015. Delivering on this promise would be a start but not enough to level up and secure the better education system outlined by the Prime Minister.

Under current Government funding plans it is a simple truth that 83% of schools will be worse off in April 2020 than in 2015 in real terms. Schools will have 2bn less spending power in 2020/21 than they did in 2015/16.

The Prime Minister must face up to the fact that not enough teachers want to stay in the job. As a result, we have 420,000 more pupils compared to 2015 but there are 3,500 fewer teachers to teach them.

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We urge the Government to work with the NEU on strengthening its strategy for teacher pay and workload and create a fair accountability system so that we can retain teachers in the job and give every child a great start.

As we enter a new decade, we challenge the Government to make a New Years resolution for schools one that breaks from the past, and aligns with the profession and parents in valuing education.

MarkDawe, Chief Executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said:

The fact that the government has only given itself a year to introduce the new system underlines the urgency of investing in skills training here, especially giving SMEs the funding to recruit more apprentices. 40 per cent of apprenticeship training providers are having to turn away firms who want to train more apprentices, often in key sectors like social care and hotels and restaurants that are heavily dependent on migrants.

Deputy Chief Executive, of the Association of Colleges, Julian Gravatt said:

I am pleased that the Queen's speech confirmed the Government's commitment to the start of proper investment in technical and professional education.

"It is clear that Brexit will dominate this new Parliament, but the focus on further education is what the country will need when and however we leave the European Union. Now, is the time to create a post-16 education system fit for the future, one that is coherent, joined up and providing the opportunities and choices for those that have been neglected for far too long.

Tom Hadley, Director of Policy and Campaigns at the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, said:

The election may have given the Government a clear mandate for immigration reform, but it is important that this works for the economy and the public. Record high employment has left firms struggling to find the workers they need, at all skill levels.Our datahas consistently shown a shortage of UK workers in sectors ranging from healthcare and engineering to hospitality and agriculture. For homes to be built, for the elderly to be cared for, and for shops to stock the goods we want, we need an immigration system that works for the whole economy.

We hope the Governments Employment Bill will incentivise business compliance and increase fairness and flexibility in work. Good work and flexibility go hand in handand REC datashows more people are choosing to do flexible work to better suit their lifestyle. Two way flexibility, that supports businesses and workers choices, is vital to a fair and productive labour market. The challenge ahead is to ensure that this works for all parties.

The Governments recognition of the importance of all people being able to retrain is welcome. Recruitment professionals are in a unique position to facilitatecareer transitions and progression, and to provide the latest insight into how skills needs are evolving. We look forward to ensuring that the National Skills Fund works for employers and workers alike.

Ryan Shorthouse, Director of Bright Blue, said:

The Conservatives won record levels of support from people on modest incomes in the latest election. To keep them on side in the long-term, the Government needs to deliver more than just Brexit. There needs to be a laser-like focus on reducing their cost of living, improving their public services, and enhancing their local infrastructure and amenities.

This focus on so-called left behind areas is nothing new. All Governments have tried to improve the lives of those with modest means. Doing so, after all, is a primary objective of government itself.

Transforming lives and communities requires a lot of time and evaluation. The legislation outlined today provides a roadmap for further reform, but there will need to be much more investment and innovation if so-called left behind communities are truly to experience noticeable change.

"The political aim of the Conservative Government is clear, but there will be no ideological consistency to the methods employed to achieve it. The Prime Minister is more interested in political power than strict adherence to a particular set of principles. He will use whatever philosophy or policies he needs to support and maintain the new voters he has just won. He will not govern as a strongly libertarian, liberal, communitarian or traditional conservative, but do enough for all of these factions within the centre-right movement to keep them happy and united."

Below, Bright Blue has responded to the announcement of legislation that is particularly relevant to our current work. It therefore is not an exhaustive response to the December 2019 Queens Speech.

Commenting, Ryan Shorthouse, Director of Bright Blue, said:

The Tories pledge to raise the primary threshold of employees National Insurance is the best tax cut they could make, since it benefits those on the lowest incomes. But cutting taxes is insufficient alone to really boost the incomes of those with modest means, to make them feel that austerity is truly over. To do this, the Government will have to make the amount of financial support that those in and out of work receive through Universal Credit more generous.

New childcare funding should seek to improve the affordability, availability and quality of childcare at pre-school level rather than school-level. Pre-school childcare should be the priority for additional government funding.

The introduction and increase in the minimum wage over recent decades has been a success. But that is in part thanks to the careful evidence and guidance of the Low Pay Commission. To maintain the support for and effectiveness of a rising wage floor, the Low Pay Commission should advise first with the Government then setting the rates after.

Commenting, Ryan Shorthouse, Director of Bright Blue, said:

Improving support and rights for mothers in work is a welcome focus and will help to reduce the gender pay gap. It will be important, following the forthcoming consultation, that the right to request flexible working is made the default from day one of an employment contract.

Commenting, Sam Robinson, Researcher at Bright Blue, said:

The Governments commitment to increasing the R&D tax credit rate will incentivise both employment and innovation, and is a welcome step towards improving the UKs productivity.

A review into business rates is long overdue. Increasing the frequency of valuations will make the system fairer and more responsive. But with three quarters of small business owners saying that the current tax regime is too complicated, this review must act as a springboard for a strategic, comprehensive rethink on how we tax businesses.

Commenting, Sam Robinson, Researcher at Bright Blue, said:

Given an ageing population and an uncertain global economic outlook, the need for increased investment must be balanced by fiscal prudence.

These rules are a marked departure from the previous stance of eliminating the deficit. Current spending must still be balanced, but this new strategy allows public sector net investment to greatly exceed that of previous years.

There is no doubt that the fiscal straitjacket has been loosened. But there is a danger that the Government uses this looser framework to run from the difficult fiscal decisions lying in the years ahead.

Commenting, Ryan Shorthouse, Director of Bright Blue, said:

Immigration policy is changing under this Government, quickly and for the better. The indiscriminate and failed net migration target is gone. And the Government is liberalising the visa regime for highly-skilled people, especially scientists and researchers, rightly aiming to ensure that Britain remains a magnet for talent post-Brexit.

We do need a controlled immigration system. And there are progressive reasons for this. Free movement across the EU is not sustainable. It is welcome that the Conservatives have dropped the net migration target, but we should have targets on gross levels of some categories of migrants.

It is right to increase the value and applicability of the NHS surcharge. Migrants should pay catch-up contributions for essential public services, which people who have lived here much longer have paid for over many years for themselves and their families. The Government should use its new powers and apply this popular contributory principle further, by asking new migrants to pay a new class of National Insurance for a short period of time.

Commenting, Ryan Shorthouse, Director of Bright Blue, said:

The Government is right to commit to increases in per-pupil funding and to raise the starting salary for newly qualified teachers. There is a real recruitment and retention problem within the teaching profession, so raising starting salaries should help. But the government now needs to also offer more extensive and generous social mobility salary supplements, to incentivise more teachers to work in less desirable areas of the country.

The Government seems to be and should continue to prioritise investment in further and technical education. The financing of higher education should not be a significant focus of politicians and policymakers in the years ahead. The current student loans system is broadly successful and progresssive, and does not require significant reform.

Commenting, Anvar Sarygulov, Senior Researcher at Bright Blue, said:

The Government is setting out a comprehensive housing agenda to help people in every kind of housing tenure. It is particularly good to see continuation of action to help private renters after the recent ban on excessive tenant fees. The abolition of no fault evictions will make private renting more secure, while adopting a single lifetime deposit will make it much easier for tenants on low income to move.

The Government is correct in continuing to support a wide variety of affordable home ownership options to meet the varying needs of different people. It is vital that the Government operates these schemes by encouraging new affordable homes to be built in significant numbers, rather than simply helping buyers by making homes cheaper or making it easier to access credit.

While it is good to see a commitment to a Social Housing White Paper, it is disappointing to see the lack of a specific commitment on increasing the number of social homes. Housebuilding in Britain has tended to reach significant numbers only when governments committed to building a significant number of social homes, and the Government will have to deliver them if they are serious about building a million homes over the course of this Parliament.

Commenting, Sam Robinson, Researcher at Bright Blue, said:

This Queens Speech promises a welcome boost for the social care system, although this new funding will only stabilise the system in the short term. The Government rightly recognises the need for a durable cross-party consensus on social care, but the lack of detail on how this is to be achieved is disappointing.

Commenting, Sam Robinson, Researcher at Bright Blue, said:

It is great to see the Government adopting much-needed reforms, such as pensions dashboards, to tackle undersaving. However pensions policy needs a long-term, consensual strategy going forward. To ensure such a consensus emerges, the Government should consider setting up an independent Pensions Commission to assess the pensions landscape, mediate between stakeholders and advise on policy.

Commenting, Phoebe Arslanagic-Wakefield, Research Assistant at Bright Blue, said:

Domestic abuse is a significant problem in the UK that affects millions, mostly women. However, currently, breaching a Domestic Violence Protection Order is not treated as a criminal offence. Through its proposed new legislation, the Government should make the breach of its new iteration of the Domestic Abuse Protection Order a criminal offence, as Bright Blue recommended in 2017.

Commenting, Sam Robinson, Researcher at Bright Blue, said:

Disabled people continue to face needless barriers in the workforce, benefits system and the housing market.

The employment gap remains stubbornly high and reducing it must be a priority. But the Government needs to focus on the quality, as well as the quantity, of work for disabled people. This will involve improving retention but also ensuring disables people have better opportunities for in-work progression.

Commenting, Patrick Hall, Researcher at Bright Blue, said:

Changing how we distribute agricultural subsidies stands to be one of the most significant benefits of the UK leaving the European Union. Last year, Bright Blue called for a gradual shift away from the EUs inefficient system of distributing rural payments based on acreage in the Common Agricultural policy, to a post-Brexit system which rewards farmers, land managers, and land owners for delivering ecosystem services in line with the public money for public goods principal.

Todays announcement that the Agriculture Bill will continue to be pushed through parliament is welcome, but the final Bill needs to lay the foundations for the introduction of a market-based, commissioning scheme so private and philanthropic funding as well as public funding can be leveraged to subsidise the rural economy and vital ecosystem services.

Commenting, Patrick Hall, Researcher at Bright Blue, said:

The costs of air pollution to our health, environment and economy are considerable. The Government needs much more ambitious legal limits, legal responsibilities and policies to tackle this problem. The Government should introduce the World Health Organisations guideline limits for all major air pollutants.

Local government needs greater legal responsibilities and funding to tackle dirty air. As a first step, the Government should enable local or combined authorities to make reasonable profits from the administration of clean air zones, which could generate funding for local scrappage schemes or increased electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

The Conservative Governments plan to ban the export of waste to non-OECD countries is very welcome, as non-OECD countries are largely responsible for plastic waste ending up in the ocean. However, the Conservative Party could have been more ambitious in tackling the scourge of plastic waste, by supporting a ban on non-recyclable plastics.

Commenting, Patrick Hall, researcher at Bright Blue, said:

The Conservatives plan to increase offshore wind energy generation to account for 40 gigawatts by 2030 is positive. However, the Conservatives should have pledged to remove current restrictions around the development of new onshore wind.

Beyond those on the lowest incomes, there are no incentives for those in the able-to-pay sector to improve the thermal efficiency of their houses, especially in rural areas where houses are typically older. There is a real opportunity missed in not putting forward policies that will encourage private investment in retrofitting, such as new Help to Improve loans, which could save the Government billions while reducing consumer energy bills and emissions.

Commenting, Ryan Shorthouse, Director of Bright Blue, said:

Since the Union is now very fragile, the Government should use the review of the constitution as an opportunity to work towards a quasi-federal settlement for the UK.

This could include a new charter of union, a new UK council of ministers, and - more radically - a new Senate to replace the House of Lords with all parts of the UK fairly represented.

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Government's education funding announcement in the Queen's Speech - FE News