Despair, and a little hope, at the Queen’s speech

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/28/despair-little-hope-queens-speech

Version 0 of 1.

The government’s decision to omit from the Queen’s speech the Conservative election pledge to scrap the Human Rights Act and to replace it with a British bill of rights, should be welcomed (Report, 28 May). A single message should emerge loud and clear from the consultation process which will take place instead. While the Human Rights Act may not be perfect, there is no credible case for its repeal. To do so would create significantly greater problems than would be solved, for the people of the UK, the British constitution, the devolution arrangements for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and for the UK’s reputation as a leading nation in the free world.Steven Greer Professor of human rights, Rosie Slowe Research assistant, University of Bristol Law School

The UK already has some of the harshest anti-industrial action rules in the developed world

• It was in the late 1950s, as a member of the Bow Group, that I learned about the Conservatives’ ambition to make Britain a property owning democracy. In the years since, one government after another has weighted taxation in favour of home ownership. Now British democracy has all but reached the government of the owners, by the owners, for the owners. The 2011 census showed that 36% of households in England and Wales rent their homes. They are treated with the same disdain, by many property owning local councillors, MPs and peers, as the crofters were in the Highland clearances by the Anglo/Scottish aristocracy in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The proposal to reduce the £26,000 cap on benefits to £23,000 is yet another example of political indifference to the fate of the many thousands of renters and their families who have been uprooted from their communities by rising rents and reducing housing benefits, which result from the cap, in the past five years, and to the many thousands more who will be over the next five years.Rev Paul NicolsonTaxpayers Against Poverty

• So the government is to give better-off tenants of social housing, built to provide a home for those in need, a gift of up to £102,700 for them, or more likely a relative of theirs or some dubious company that will be set up to exploit the situation, to buy their rented house? In any other country this would be called bribery. As they believe unswervingly in the power of markets, shouldn’t they be asking themselves why the market doesn’t provide houses at a price that people can afford?Brian KeeganPeterborough

• The promise to devolve powers out of Whitehall to large cities makes complete and utter sense. At long last, we are provided with an opportunity to set taxes appropriate to the local economic conditions and encourage economic development rather than follow a metropolitan centric “bash the rich” policy.

It is about time that we embarked on resolute regional regeneration. It is, after all, only right that local areas should be able to control and reap the benefits of certain taxes, including property tax such as stamp duty land tax (SDLT), providing incentives to encourage people to invest in certain cities. The chancellor’s declaration in December’s autumn statement to alter the slab system of SDLT to a graduated system was a welcome one. This reform means that SDLT will be cut for 98% of homebuyers, significantly lightening the burden for those looking to get a foot on the property ladder, thus smoothing price inequality and encouraging social mobility in the recovering economy.

The pledged devolution further demonstrates our government’s commitment to improve conditions for the masses as opposed to the minority.David HannahPrincipal consultant, Cornerstone Tax

Will we see a similar bill that will force companies to ask shareholders if they want to opt in to such donations?

• It is disappointing that the Guardian hasn’t given greater prominence to the draft legislation, unveiled in the Queen’s speech, which makes strikes significantly harder to organise. The UK already has some of the harshest anti-industrial action rules in the developed world and the new rules regarding minimum turnouts represent the biggest attack on the right to organise for over a generation. Such attacks, made at a time when the number of days lost to industrial action remains historically low, are likely to cause even greater inequality, an issue identified by Thomas Piketty, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett as the one of the largest barriers to growth within our society. Depriving workers of the right to strike by implementing minium turnout levels in ballots which exist nowhere else within our democratic process threaten not only to exacerbate inequality but also present further barriers to solving the issue of Britain’s growing productivity gap.

By denying workers the right to take action to increase their wages, they also continue to leave employers in a position whereby they are likely to continue to desist from investment in new plant and technology as they will be protected from workers’ ability to enforce inflationary pay rises, thus removing the main incentive from making further investments essential to improving the international competitiveness of our economy. Such changes should be resisted by all progressives as an unnecessary and unneeded attack on working people, the result of which is likely to leave us all worse off.Andy PrendergastGMB, south-east London and Kent area

• So the trade unions bill will force union members to opt in if they want to pay a political levy? Many companies make contributions to political parties. Can we therefore expect to see a similar bill that will force companies to ask shareholders if they want to opt in to such donations, and if they choose to do so, their contribution to the donations being deducted from their dividends? Anyone in favour of a level playing field?Doug SimpsonTodmorden, West Yorkshire