Five things that need to be in the Queen’s Speech

20 June 2017

This week Theresa May will attempt to produce a Queen’s Speech. Here are five things that need to be in it.

Reverse planned cuts to social security
Tories plans to slash social security will see low income workers, families and the most vulnerable lose out over £1 billion by 2020/21.

Make austerity history
Day to day spending in Scotland is set to fall by a further £1 billion in the next three years. The General Election was a wake-up call to the Tories – austerity needs to end.

Protect the WASPI women
Over 250,000 women in Scotland have had their state pension age changed without fair notice. That just isn’t fair, so the Tories should commit to transactional protections for the WASPI women.

Scrap VAT on Scotland’s Police and Fire Services
The way the SNP government centralised Police and Fire Services left them with a £35 million a year VAT bill. This is a mess of the SNP’s making, but the UK Tories need to drop the point scoring and give our emergency services a tax cut.

More support for Oil and Gas
In the last UK Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) downgraded its forecast for offshore receipts by 37 per cent. The North Sea needs real support, not just warm words.

We need to see investment in the North Sea oil and gas industry to protect jobs in the short and long term, and plan properly for decommissioning. We also need to look at taking vital pieces of infrastructure into temporary public ownership to stop them being decommissioned prematurely.

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