LONDON — Britain’s Conservative government made sweeping promises to cut crime, improve health care and revive the pandemic-scarred economy as it laid out …
LONDON — Britain’s Conservative government made sweeping promises to cut crime, improve health care and revive the pandemic-scarred economy as it laid out its plans for the next year in a tradition-steeped ceremony in Parliament — but without Queen Elizabeth II, who was absent for the first time in six decades. The 96-year-old monarch pulled out of reading the Queen’s Speech at the ceremonial State Opening of Parliament because of what Buckingham Palace calls «episodic mobility issues.» Her son and heir, Prince Charles, stood in, rattling through a short speech laying out 38 bills the government plans to pass. The speech, which is written by the government, promised Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s administration would «grow and strengthen the economy and help ease the cost of living for families.» But it contained few immediate measures to relieve households struggling with soaring prices for domestic energy and food. As well as bills on education, health care funding and «levelling up» economic opportunity to poorer regions, the speech promised laws aimed at pleasing the government’s right-leaning voter base, including promises to seize «Brexit freedoms» by cutting red tape for businesses and overhauling financial services and data regulation now that Britain has left the European Union. Some of the plans are already strongly criticized by opposition parties and civil liberties groups, including a contentious new law to outlaw disruptive protest tactics favored by groups such as Extinction Rebellion.
