Keir Starmer promises to ‘take the brakes off Britain’ in first king’s speech – UK politics live

Starmer says a government of service “must also be a government of accountability and justice”. He says that is why the Hillsborough law is so important.

The Labour MP Sarah Owen rises to make an intervention. She asks for an assurance that Starmer takes child poverty seriously, and that he will address it.

Starmer says he takes it extremely serious. The last Labour government had a strategy to tackle this, and he has announced today a taskforce to address this.

Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Wesminster, intervenes. He asks how many children will remain in place while that taskforce undertakes its work. He says the taskforce will conclude the two-child benefit must be scrapped.

Starmer says he thinks all MPs want to address this problem. What matters is the commitment to address the number and to “drive those numbers down”.

Starmer pays tribute to Peter Dowd and Florence Eshalomi for the speeches they gave at the start of the debate.

And he thanks Rishi Sunak for the tone of his speech, saying Sunak went “well beyond the usual standards of generosity”.

He confirms that the government will take up bills proposed by the last government, on football governance, smoking, the Holocaust memorial and Martyn’s law.

Figen Murray, Martyn’s mum, walked 200 miles to London to ensure that legislation was passed on venue security, he says. He says he met her, and will honour the promise made to her.

Starmer congratulates the England football team. He says he was talking about their performance in the Euros with Rishi Sunak when they walked to the Lords this morning.

From there, he moves on to his core political message – repeating the point made in his foreward to the king’s speech document about wanting politics to focus on service again. He more or less repeats the passage quoted earlier. (See 12.31pm.)

Keir Starmer is speaking now. He starts with a tribute to the king, but quickly moves on to Donald Trump. He says:

We also wish President Trump a speedy recovery from the appalling attempt on his life weekend.

I spoke with President Trump on Sunday night to pass our best wishes, but also to share our revulsion of the senseless violence which has no place in democracy.

Starmer says, from where he is standing now, he can see the plaque above the Labour benches commemorating Jo Cox, the Labour MP killed by a terrorist. He says he agrees with President Biden about the need to lower the temperature of political debate, so people can work through their disagreements and accept each other’s decency.

Sunak says Labour inherited an economy that was on an upward trajectory.

He says the government is implying that the state of the public finances is worse then it thought. But during the election campaign the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the books were open, and that it was clear what the situation was.

He says Labour cannot honestly claim that tax rises are needed because the finances are in a worse state than they thought. He says the Tories will hold Keir Starmer to his pledge on taxes he has said he won’t raise.

Sunak ends by saying, although the government has a big majority, it should seek cross-party support for constitutional reform.

On illegal migration, Sunak says he thinks that was a mistake for the government to abandon the Rwanda plan. Without a deterrent, more people will want to come to the UK, he says.

And, on legal migration, he urges the government to keep the measures the last government announced before the election, which he says will cut net migration over the next 12 months.

Sunak is now on the political part of his speech.

He welcomes the fact that the king’s speech includes plans for “Martyn’s law”, without mentioning the controversy he caused when he led Figen Murray, whose son Martyn was killed in the Manchester Arena bombing, that the new venue security law would be passed before the general election.

And he urges the government to fully commit to raising defence spending to 2.5% of GDP.

Back in the Commons Rishi Sunak is speaking now. He started with a tribute to the king, and to the late Tony Lloyd, the Labour MP who died in the last session. And he says all MPs will join him in deploring the attack on President Trump. (He is following US custom, where ex-Presidents continue to be addressed with the title President.)

Sunak is now paying tribute to Peter Dowd and Florence Eshalomi for the way they delivered their speeches. He is generous and funny about both of them (which is what is expected in this debate).

One of the MPs chosen to propose the loyal address is meant to be an old-timer, and the other is meant to be a younger one with a bright future ahead. Sunak tells Eshalomi the whips clearly think she will go far. Then he launches into a self-deprecatory joke.

If I may offer some words of advice to members opposite, on the government benches life comes at you fast. Soon you might be fortunate enough to be tapped on the shoulder and offered a junior ministerial role. Then you’ll find yourself attending cabinet, then in the cabinet. And then when the prime minister’s position becomes untenable, you might end up being called to the highest office. And before you know it, you have a bright future behind you. And you are left wondering whether you can credibly be an elder statesman at the age of 44.

Downing Street has announced that Keir Starmer has set up a ministerial taskforce to develop a child poverty strategy. It will be led by Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, and Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary.

In a news released explaining how this will work, No 10 says:

A new child poverty unit in the Cabinet Office – bringing together expert officials from across government as well as external experts – will report into the taskforce. The new unit will explore how we can use all the available levers we have across government to create an ambitious strategy.

Recognising the wide-ranging causes of child poverty, secretaries of state from across government will take part in this work, with the first meeting set to take place in the coming weeks.

In the immediate term, the taskforce is expected to consider how we can use levers related to household income as well as employment, housing, children’s health, childcare and education to improve children’s experiences and chances at life.

It also says that Kendall met organisations this morning to discuss child poverty, including Save the Children, Action for Children, Barnados, the TUC, End Child Poverty Coalition, the Resolution Foundation and Unicef. Kendall posted a picture from the meeting on X this morning.

In a statement quoted in the news release, Keir Starmer says:

For too long children have been left behind, and no decisive action has been taken to address the root causes of poverty. This is completely unacceptable – no child should be left hungry, cold or have their future held back.

That’s why we’re prioritising work an ambitious child poverty strategy and my ministers will leave no stone unturned to give every child the very best start at life.

Presumably all the organisations Kendall consulted this morning told her the government should abolish the two-child benefit cap, because in the sector there is almost universal agreement that this is one of the single biggest measures that would make a difference to child poverty. The tasforce is certain to hear this message too.

Although ministers are still refusing to commit now to getting rid of the two-child benefit, because they cannot say yet how they would fund this, it is hard to imagine the government refusing to budge on this for another year given how strongly many Labour MPs feel about this.

Florence Eshalomi, the Labour MP for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, is now seconding the loyal address. She was a shadow minister in opposition, but has not got a government job. If she is disappointed, she is hiding it well.

She says the Old Vic theatre is in her constituency. She says it is now showing a play about an MP who has James Corden as a constituent. But since Corden lives in California, perhaps he should get in touch with Rishi Sunak, she jokes.

Labour’s Peter Dowd, MP for Bootle, is opening the debate now. He is proposing the humble address to the king, thanking him for the king’s speech. He says he is not the first person in his family to be an MP – one of them also represented Bootle – but he is the first person in his family to move the loyal address, he says.

Hoyle says the ballot for deputy speakers will be held on Tuesday 23 July.

Lucy Powell, the leader of the Commons, moves a motion saying that, until full-time deputy speakers are elected, Sir Edward Leigh, Siobhain McDonagh and Christopher Chope. That is passed.

Hoyle also lists the subjects for debate during the king’s speech debate. Tomorrow it wil be foreign affairs and defence, on Friday it will be planning and the green belt, on Monday it will be the economy, welfare and public services, and on Tuesday it will be immigration.

Hoyle is now taking about security and safety. He says all MPs have a duty to be vigilant, and to think about the security of the building.

He also says he will do what he can to help MPs in their constituencies. He says they should follow the advice they get on security. He never wants to receive a call again about an MP being killed, he says.

Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, starts with a statement about how MPs have to follow the Commons rules. It is a statement he has to make at the start of every session. He also makes a statement about the freedom of speech enjoyed by MPs, and he tells MPs it is their duty to be accurate in what they say in the chamber, and to correct the record when they make a mistake.

He says he does not have the power, as speaker, to policy the accuracy of what MPs say. He stresses that he is addressing this point to the media too. That is a reference to how he is often criticised for not challenging MPs when they say things that are misleading.

He tells MPs to be courteous to each other. And he encourages them to limit their use of mobile phones. They should be able to ask a question without reading it out, he says.

The Commons is sitting again, and MPs who have not taken the oath are doing so. Labour’s Jonathan Reynolds, and the Conservatives Geoffrey Cox and Andrew Murrison have just pledged their allegiance.

Campaigners and experts have said the measures in the king’s speech will do little to reduce child poverty.

Commenting on the legislative programme set out by the government, Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, said:

The new government pledged an ambitious approach to tackling child poverty but there was little to help achieve that aim in the speech today. The two-child limit is the biggest driver of rising child poverty and teachers, struggling parents and even children themselves can testify to the harm the policy is causing to kids day in, day out.

All eyes will now be on government’s first budget, which must commit to scrapping this policy. Delaying its abolition will harm many more young lives and undercut the government’s poverty-reduction plans.

Aveek Bhattacharya, research director at the Social Market Foundation thinktank, said:

Despite growing pressure on the government to prioritise the issue, the word “poverty” was missing entirely in the king’s speech, and makes just four appearances across the 105 pages of background briefing notes. Expanding breakfast clubs and legislating for a smokefree generation are worthy ventures, but they hardly constitute an anti-poverty strategy.

Labour’s manifesto promised an ambitious child poverty strategy, and on that basis we might have expected new legislation to replace the last Labour government’s Child Poverty Act, which was scrapped in 2015. Instead, discontent around the two child benefit cap – a leading contributor to poverty – is only likely to grow in the months ahead.

If this is a statement of the government’s priorities, it does not augur well.

And Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said:

Child poverty is a blight on this country, and it is time for a total re-think of how we support disadvantaged students. Compared to overall government expenditure, removing the two-child limit costs very little and will lift hundreds of thousands out of poverty at a stroke. Introducing universal breakfast clubs is a step forward, but the aim should be free school meals for all pupils, which would result in a net benefit to the economy.

The government has said it will produce a plan to reduce child poverty. But that has not been published yet.

The main education components of the king’s speech, such as the intention to add VAT to private school fees and funding for free school breakfasts in England’s primary schools, were as expected.

The less well-known measures in the forthcoming children’s wellbeing bill include plans for councils to maintain “children not in school” registers – in effect a regional register of children being home educated.

Parents of children in state schools in England will be most directly affected by a new limit on “branded” uniform items that schools can require pupils to wear, in an effort to cut uniform costs, and by new powers for local authorities over admissions by academies. The latter will particularly affect applications for secondary school places, as most secondary schools are now academies, and in the difficult decisions for councils managing primary school closures as the number of infants continues to fall. Currently, academies in England can set their own admissions criteria within the limits of DfE regulations.

School leaders welcomed the measures, although Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said the bill only covers part of what the government could do “to repair the damage of the last 14 years”.

Here are four overall takes on the king’s speech from journalists and commentators.

From George Eaton at the New Statesman

The King’s Speech is confirmation that this Labour government is the most interventionist and class-conscious since Harold Wilson’s.

From Lewis Goodall from the News Agents podcast

No surprises in the King’s Speech (there rarely are). Reemphasises two things a) this government will live or die on its theory that supply side measures in the economy can quickly boost growth b) that we have the most reflexively interventionist government for decades.

From Sophy Ridge from Sky News

The King’s Speech talks about devolution but for my money the key message is a more centralised and interventionist Gvt, that’s prepared to be muscular pushing through planning/housebuilding, nationalising rail companies, a national curriculum & Gvt owned energy company

From Harry Cole from the Sun

BIG government is back…

Peter Walker has listed some of the main measures missing from the king’s speech.