UNISON General Secretary, Dave Prentis, commenting on the Government
legislative programme set out in today Queen’s Speech, said that it shows
that the Government has listened and has taken up the issues which matter
to people.
Dave Prentis said:
The programme in this Queen’s Speech shows that the Government has been
listening to the worries and concerns of ordinary people. It has taken up the
issues that matter to them care for the elderly, curbs on risk-taking
and sharp practices by the financial sector, health care, poverty and the
environment.
This is in contrast to the Tories and Lib Dems who seem to think that
Parliament should spend the next six months twiddling its collective thumbs.
It’s a shame that the Government won’t have time to enact some of these
proposals. We will be campaigning for cast-iron guarantees that those not
enacted will be contained in Labour’s election manifesto, as firm
commitments for a new Parliament.
We expect the agency workers’ directive to be implemented immediately.
We also expect that the manifesto will not include any further
privatisation of public services. If the Government has been listening, as it
now appears to be, it will accept that this ideology of reliance on markets
should be abandoned, as it has been shown to fail.
We want to make sure that public services remain at the heart of the
economic recovery and that funding is in place to meet the needs of ordinary
people.