‘Live Local and Prosper’: BoJo to Channel Spock in Queen’s Speech Aimed at Northern Voters

Queen Elizabeth II is expected to announce a sweeping legislative agenda for the new session of Parliament on Tuesday, with bills to allow pots-Brexit state aid to save jobs, relax planning regulations for new housing and centralise control of the health service already trailed in the media.

A promise that depressed northern communities will be able to "live local and prosper" under the government's 'levelling-up' agenda will feature in the Queen's speech.

Prime Minister Boris Jonson is set to paraphrase Mr Spock's Vulcan maxim from Star Trek as part of the Conservatives' drive to consolidate their capture of dozens of northern 'red wall' seats from Labour.

Conservative candidate Jill Mortimer won landslide by-election victory in the north-eastern Labour stronghold of Hartlepool on Thursday, vindicating the Tory strategy of promising to "level up" the neglected north.

As part of Johnson's trailed shift in focus from "jabs to jobs" as the COVID-19 lockdown winds down, the Queen is reportedly set to announce a busy legislative agenda as she opens a new session of Parliament.

That will include new legislation on further education and training to bring skills and jobs to the long-neglected and de-industrialised north of England, with a message to residents that they no longer have to move away to find work.

— Paul Wheatley (@wheatleypaul) May 9, 2021

​"My Government is still focussed on beating this disease, saving lives and livelihoods and rolling out vaccines, but I am also determined that we look forward and get on with fulfilling the promises we have made to the British people," Johnson said.

"Not only will we address the legacies of the pandemic, we will go further to unite and level up the country, fight crime and create opportunities up and down the country for businesses and families to build brighter futures."

Other new laws mooted to be in the Queen's Speech include a state aid bill to deliver on Brexit promises of freedom from restrictive Brussels rules, and a planning bill to make it easier for developers to build by forcing local authorities to divide land into "growth" or "protection" zones. The ostensible aim is to deliver on a 2019 election promise of 300,000 new homes per year.

A Building Safety Bill will attempt to address the fallout from the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 residents of a tower block in the Ladbroke Grove district of London.

And a health and care bill to support the NHS and clear the huge diagnosis and treatment backlog after more than a year of pandemic crisis is also mooted. However, a long-promised social care bill is rumoured to be absent from the Queen's speech — or may be rolled up into the health legislation.