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Prisons, adoption and NHS charges in Queen’s speech
A shake-up of prisons was at the heart of a nine-minute whistle-stop Queen’s speech containing 21 bills. The Prison and Courts Reform Bill will give prison governors ‘unprecedented freedom’ to manage the institutions, ‘old and inefficient’ prisons will be closed and ‘reform’ prisons will be piloted with an emphasis on training, rehabilitation and education. Satellite tracking will be piloted and reoffending league tables published. Action will also be taken to ensure better mental health provision for individuals in the criminal justice system and to make better use of technology to speed up and cut the cost of the court process.
Legislation, in the form of a Children and Social Work Bill, will be introduced to ‘tackle some of the deepest social problems in society, and improve life chances’. The bill will speed up adoption procedures and improve standards of social work. Councils will be required to tell children leaving care what services they are entitled to and all care leavers will have the right to a personal adviser until they are 25. In addition, councils and schools will have a duty to promote the educational achievement of adopted children.
An NHS (Overseas Visitors Charging) Bill will tighten residency rules so that fewer visitors from the European Economic Area are eligible for free health care. Overseas migrants and visitors will be charged for NHS services to which they are not entitled, and measures will be introduced to make sure the costs of treating migrants are recovered, so that the money can be put back into the NHS.
Other bills include a Counter-Extremism and Safeguarding Bill to prevent radicalisation, tackle extremism, and promote community integration, and a Small Charitable Donations Bill, which will amend the gift aid scheme to increase the benefits for new and smaller charities.
Plans for a British Bill of Rights got only brief mention, when the Queen said merely that ‘proposals will be brought forward’.