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Queen’s Speech outlines government priorities

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Opening the 2022/23 Parliamentary session on 10 May 2022, the Queen’s Speech set out the UK government’s legislative priorities, including the following:

  • Draft Audit Reform Bill to improve financial reporting and introduce a new statutory regulator, the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority;
  • Non-Domestic Rating Bill to review the business rates system and to reduce the business rates revaluation cycle from five to three years;
  • Financial Services and Markets Bill to strengthen the financial services industry by cutting red tape, including revoking retained EU law and replacing it with an approach to regulation that is designed for the UK;
  • Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill aiming to streamline the process for people to have fast-tracked access to disability benefits towards the end of their lives;
  • Electronic Trade Documents Bill to enable businesses to move from paper-based to digital-based transactions when buying and selling internationally;
  • Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill to tackle economic crime, including fraud and money-laundering; and
  • Harbours (Seafarers’ Remuneration) Bill to empower ports to surcharge ferry operators if they do not pay the equivalent of the national minimum wage and ultimately to suspend them from access to the port.

Employment status expert Rebecca Seeley Harris expressed her disappointment on the omission of an Employment Bill from the Queen's Speech - and, in particular, on the lack of a firm timetable for the creation of a single enforcement body which would act as a new watchdog to protect umbrella company workers and regulate the umbrella company industry.

'It is vitally important that a level playing field is created for those umbrella companies that are compliant and to stop the abuses. There is, however, no timeline at present just, when parliamentary time allows but, apparently high-level responsibilities have been proposed,' Seeley Harris said.

Issue: 1575
Categories: News
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