Member Article

Queen opens parliament and introduces legislative plans

The Queen has set out the government’s legislative plans for the coming year, as she delivered her speech at the state opening of parliament.

Among the bills introduced, was the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which will create a single Competition Markets Authority by merging the Competition Commission and the Office of Fair Trading.

This Bill will also cover directors pay, where shareholders will be allowed a binding vote on the remuneration of directors.

Elsewhere, employment law will see some changes, particularly around employment tribunals and redundancies, although the intricacies of this are still be finalised.

The Banking Reform Bill will separate retail and investment banking, ensuring that banks who provide retail services will only be able to do so if these services are ring-fenced from the investment activities of the bank.

As previously reported on Bdaily, the Groceries Code Adjudicator to enforce fair treatment of suppliers by larger retailers.

For workers, the state pension age will be raised to 67 between 2026 and 2028, under the Pensions Bill.

For public sector workers, the Public Service Pensions Bill, will mean their pensions move to a career average scheme.

John Cridland, CBI Director-General, said:“The test for this Queen’s Speech is whether it will help businesses to grow. Two Bills stand out for me: energy and regulatory reform. The first should help, but the jury’s out on the second.”

Commenting on the proposals, he said, on energy: “Let’s be clear, electricity market reform is about keeping the lights on. Business investment in low-carbon will only happen when the detailed market framework is in place. Today’s announcements are an important stepping stone.”

On employment, enterprise and regulatory reform he added: “We hear a lot about regulatory reform, but the big prize for businesses would be to major on the new power for ‘sunset clauses’ on regulation and regulators. Every new bit of regulation should be time-limited and then reviewed.

“It is employment regulation where the shoe pinches for growing firms. We await the Government’s bold reforms in this area.

“But there is one new piece of business regulation here. Shareholder power is now being felt in the boardroom, and the Government should be careful that new legislation supports accountability to shareholders but does not try to turn them into micro-managers.

“To be workable, the threshold for forward-looking binding votes should be a simple, straight majority and the plans to introduce binding votes on exit payments should be dropped.”

Simon Walker, Director General of the Institute of Directors, said “The Government is right to place deficit reduction and economic stability at the forefront of their programme.

On binding shareholder votes on executive pay, he added: “We welcome the Government’s plans to give shareholders a binding vote in the setting of executive pay.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .