This is the moment when Theresa May really lost it: her crass decision to try to send MPs away early for their summer holidays, when they were soon to leave Westminster for 10 weeks anyway. Even normally loyal Tories are appalled. It sums her up. The control freak who can’t handle debate and dissent. The tin ear for the public mood. Above all, the “do nothing” approach to the state of the nation.
For the truth is, May doesn’t want parliament around because, even leaving aside Brexit, she has nothing for it to do. She has no reform agenda and no plans for meeting the “burning injustices” she feigned to care about on the steps of No 10 on becoming prime minister. She is clueless.
At this moment of national crisis, parliament shouldn’t be taking holidays at all. It should sit for the extra time that the summer provides and legislate to fix this country. Over the past six months I have been travelling far and wide, meeting people in the hundred most leave-supporting areas of Britain. Yes, I have found many people who voted for Brexit and believe it will answer their problems. But they mostly realise that Europe isn’t the problem, however much the EU could be improved. What we need is fundamental reform to address the deep social and economic problems that are gripping people and communities nationwide, particularly the least advantaged.
So what should the government be bringing to parliament instead of a 10-week holiday? I will be publishing detailed proposals for 10 pieces of legislation that would answer the needs of the millions who are left out and left behind in today’s Britain.
First, a Northern Ireland equality bill to establish a baseline of rights for same-sex couples and for fertility rights that makes everyone an equal citizen before the law, wherever they live on these islands. How better for unionists to make this United Kingdom feel truly united in terms of our values and our rights?
Next, we must act on social disadvantage and material inequality: a social housing bill that mandates at least one-for-one replacement for social homes that are sold and that liberates local authorities to fix the housing crisis; a school inclusion bill that tackles the growing scourge of educational disenfranchisement by making temporary exclusions illegal, supporting schools to tackle disruptive behaviour; a universal digital standards bill, to accelerate the rollout of full fibre and end massive inequalities of digital access; and an apprenticeship rights bill that finally delivers on vocational education by guaranteeing a training place to all teenagers who don’t go to university. We need a fair pay bill, that would bring forward a tough action plan to eliminate the remaining arbitrary and discriminatory gaps in pay that affect women and some minorities in the work place.
Alongside these, we need a new food rights bill that builds on the French example by banning supermarkets – many of which still dump as much food as they give away – from throwing away usable food while there are people using food banks.
We also need new legislation to abolish the inequalities of power that plague modern Britain. A youth emancipation bill would pass easily in the Commons, where there is now a clear majority for votes at 16, and would mean that our young people were never again excluded from decisions about their futures. A northern powerhouse action bill is desperately needed, to hand real power to mayors in our great northern cities so that they cease to be the poor relations of their colleague in London. This bill should also mandate and finance the construction of a new high-speed network between Liverpool in the west and Newcastle and Hull to the east. Westminster’s broken promises to the north should be a source of acute shame.
The tenth bill is a council tax justice bill to address the crisis in our social care system. At the moment, council tax payments by the better off are as outdated and unjust as Jacob Rees-Mogg’s views on British society. They need to be made more progressive and linked directly to the provision of good quality social care that is free at the point of use.
Sending parliament on an early holiday is wrong at this time of national crisis and peril. We have a responsibility to pass the legislation that Britain needs, to modernise and to meet its obligations to the least well off, Brexit or no Brexit. What a shame that Theresa May’s government lacks the will, the work ethic and the imagination to do the right thing.