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POLITICAL BRIEF



The political brief



The Queen’s Speech



The Queen’s Speech 2012 took place on Wednesday 9 May and set out the Government’s policies and proposed legislative programme for the new parliamentary session.



Bills announced of particular interest to the NASUWT were:



• Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

• Children and Families Bill

• State Pensions Bill

• Public Sector Pensions Bill



Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill



This Bill seeks to overhaul the employment tribunal system and the dispute resolution landscape as well as scrapping a range of workplace regulations and legislation.



The Bill would apply to the whole of the UK.



Children and Families Bill



This Bill will include clauses to replace special educational needs (SEN) statements and Learning Difficulty Assessments (for 16-25 year olds) with a single, simpler 0-25 assessment process and Education, Health and Care Plan from 2014. This will give parents or young people the right to a personal budget for their support.



While parts of the Bill will apply to the whole of the UK, the SEN clauses will apply to England only.



State Pensions Bill



The State Pensions Bill will seek to replace the current state pension system with a new single-tier pension, bring forward the increase in the state pension age to 67 and ensure that the state pension age is increased in future to take into account increases in longevity.



The Bill will apply to England, Scotland and Wales only.



Public Sector Pensions Bill



The Public Sector Pensions Bill will start the implementation of the Final Proposed Agreements and encourage public sector workers, including teachers, to retire later, with pension benefits normally paid at state pension age.



The Bill will leave unchanged the devolved administrations’ competence for pensions and delegations of powers to make regulations.



The NASUWT will make representations on all the proposed areas of legislation to secure the best possible outcome for members across the UK.





Election Summary



England



In London, Boris Johnson was re-elected Mayor of London, beating Ken Livingstone by a margin of 3%. Labour achieved better results in the London Assembly winning 12 of the 25 seats, the most ever held by a single party.



Across the rest of England, Labour gained control of an additional 22 councils and achieved a net gain of 824 council seats. Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats suffered significant losses.



In Liverpool, Labour's Joe Anderson was elected mayor with 59.33% of the vote and in neighbouring Greater Manchester, Labour’s Ian Stewart was elected Mayor of Salford with 69.9% of the vote. Elsewhere, mayoral referendums took place in ten cities. In nine of these cities, electors voted against having a directly elected mayor, Bristol being the exception. Finally, a referendum was held in Doncaster in which electors voted to keep their directly elected mayor.



Wales



In Wales, there were all-out elections for every council except Anglesey. Labour gained 231 councillors and eight extra councils – making gains from all of the other main parties as well as from independents in some areas.



Scotland



In Scotland, all local council seats were up for grabs. To control any council outright with a voting system other than first past the post is itself extremely difficult, but the elections saw both the SNP and the Labour Party gaining both council seats and control of councils.



The Liberal Democrat and Tory vote collapsed, but, unlike that seen in the Scottish Parliamentary election, this collapse appeared to be to the benefit of both Scottish Labour and the SNP.