Labour’s First King’s Speech
The first King’s Speech since the General Election takes place tomorrow, Wednesday 17 July where King Charles will deliver Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plans in his speech at the State Opening of Parliament
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by Dave Cross
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The first King’s Speech since the General Election takes place tomorrow, Wednesday 17 July. King Charles will deliver Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plans for Labour in his speech at the State Opening of Parliament. It is hotly anticipated the Tobacco and Vapes Bill will feature in an unchanged format.
Celebrity TV Doc Dr Rachel Clarke wrote on Twitter/X: “The Tobacco & Vaping Bill was an example of decent, honourable, caring politics. That Sunak dumped it after cajoling, lobbying & threats from the tobacco industry - whose profits are blood money - says everything about our current rotten politics.”
The Times reports: “Sir Keir Starmer will set out his government’s legislative agenda this week with more than 30 bills as he seeks to get Britain growing and establish his mandate for change.”
For smoking and vaping, the newspaper believes that, “the first health measures are likely to be two left over from the previous government that have wide cross-party support. Sunak’s smoking ban ran out of time before the election and the bill, which bans anyone born after 2009 from ever buying cigarettes, is likely to feature in the King’s Speech.”
The Guardian writes: “The packed speech is expected to contain more than 30 bills, including measures to kickstart a national housebuilding programme, bolster workers’ rights, crack down on people-smuggling and add millions of voters to the electoral roll.”
It also adds that the Tories’ rolling smoking ban will be introduced as part of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill: “The speech is also expected to resurrect Sunak’s promised generational smoking ban, which will raise the legal age for buying tobacco products by a year every year.”
Writing for the BBC, Laura Kuenssberg says: “Top of the list is getting the economy growing - No 10 and 11’s priority. So expect plans to shake up the planning system, encourage house building, and more powers for the government’s budget watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility.
“Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban is expected to be followed through.”
Other measures we can expect in the King’s Speech will be plans for a new criminal offence of assaulting shop workers to protect workers including those working in vape stores.
Paddy Lillis, general secretary at retail union Usdaw, is reported as saying: “The Tories’ dither and delay on retail crime left thousands of shop workers needlessly suffering physical and mental injury. We look forward to Labour delivering a much-needed protection of shop workers’ law; ending the perverse £200 threshold for prosecuting shoplifters, which effectively became an open invitation to retail criminals; and funding more uniformed officers patrolling shopping areas along with town centre banning orders for repeat offenders.”
The measures have received words of encouragement from Tory sources. Times journalist Janice Turner wrote an opinion piece demanding that Labour embraces the nanny state to improve the nation’s health – referencing the “success” of the pub smoking ban.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
