The two great Queens divided by 350 years and very different circumstances have shown women in the top job to best effect. Both came to the throne in eras when it was assumed men filled the leadership roles. Both inherited the job despite rules giving precedence to the male line. Both handled male dominated institutions with skill. The second Elizabeth was a role model for many more women leaders who in recent years have risen to the most powerful roles in our society, changing our public and business realms substantially so all but the most unreformed welcome good women leaders as well as men.

Their jobs were very different. Elizabeth I was head of government as well as Head of State,wielding ultimate power in her realm. Elizabeth II was the perfect constitutional monarch, embodying the power of the state but leaving it to governments elected by the people and answerable to Parliament to exercise the power.
Elizabeth I was at constant risk of assassination as her religious and political enemies circled. She had to reckon with the possible enmity of Spain, the super power of the day, drawing her into war. She needed to still the conflicts between Catholic and Protestant. She led her country to a remarkable victory against a huge Spanish invasion fleet and presided over a welcome internal peace which powered rising prosperity and a cultural flowering.

Elizabeth II survived the world war which threatened her family just like others from the bombing campaigns and inherited the throne at a young age owing to her father’s untimely death. She needed to keep the idea of monarchy fresh and lively for a new modernising era.With great skill she evolved the style and practice of the monarchy, adapting it to a television age. Her image like her predecessors was on every token of our money , on our postage stamps and in many a Council chamber and boardroom. It was also there in our living rooms on tv showing us her every move and gesture on visits and at state occasions. As the reign advanced so we saw more of her family life.She faced a level of public and media scrutiny that previous monarchs avoided, though they had often been lambasted by cartoonists and scribbling critics.

Parliament rightly has adjourned to pay respects to our late Queen and to allow the use of the Palace of Westminster for the solemn proceedings before the funeral around the lying in state. On current plans the House of Commons will not meet again until October 17th.  We need to get back to Parliamentary work sooner than mid October given the shortened September session and given the urgent tasks that await the new government.

There is a need to produce a detailed scheme of help to businesses facing impossible fuel bills. We need to debate and legislate the full package of energy measures to increase supply and ease the cost of living and cost of doing business crises. We want to hear the Chancellor’s Financial Statement and cut the taxes as promised.

MPs will want to hear from the new Home Secretary how she will defeat the dangerous people trafficking across the Channel, and develop the points based migration system. We wish to learn more of the new Health Secretary’s plans to get waiting times down and cut waiting lists. How will a range of Ministers unite to produce a growth strategy?

It is right we show our respects to the late Queen and right Palace and government are united to organise the State funeral. We must then pick up the pace of changing things for the better.

I have put these points to Ministers

The King spoke well with a moving tribute to his late mother and his clear pledge to undertake his new tasks in the spirit of public service above politics which informed the Queen for seventy years. At the Privy Council he reaffirmed his wish to uphold our democratic traditions and to be guided by the Parliaments of his realms.

In the coming week the UK Parliament will  rest adjourned in mourning. The Palace of Westminster will  be turned into more of a  fortress than normal  in preparation for the funeral of the Queen and the arrival of numerous Presidents, Heads of State and government from around the world to London for this great and sad occasion. The Queen’s body will lie in state in Westminster Hall in preparation. The external business of government will stop, with politics suspended whilst  the relevant Ministers are involved in the preparations and events surrounding the death of the monarch.The nation mourns with its government until the funeral.

Meanwhile the country wrestles with the energy crisis and the cost of living pressures. It is fortunate that the government was able to make a reassuring statement before these sad events that relief is on its way from unaffordable fuel bills. Behind the closed office doors it is important that work goes on to complete the plans for the energy package and for the promised Financial Statement later this month to follow the period of mourning. Parliament should  return earlier from the planned Conference break to scrutinise and approve measures commensurate with the scale of the challenge to business and families posed by the prices of gas and electricity. Business is suffering now with no protection in place against the surges in energy prices.

The Queen’s success rested on her firm understanding of the principles of constitutional monarchy in a democratic state. She took seriously her leading role in the great occasions of each year and of her reign.

Every year saw her distribution on Maundy Thursday in spring, her Remembrance day acts so we do not forget all those who gave their lives in war, Trooping the  colour in summer and her unifying Christmas message. There was the annual  rhythm of the sporting events she liked to attend and time spent in Balmoral and Norfolk outside London.

The reign brought us royal weddings and state funerals, Jubilee celebrations and one off events from the Olympics to World Cup competitions where she  would play her part.She hosted Heads of State visiting from abroad and travelled to many countries as our leading Ambassador.

She opened Parliament and set out the government’s plans in the Queen’s speech from the throne. Written in neutral language it is heard in silence by all parties. MPs then return to the Commons to debate it, support or criticise it, putting living politics into the measured plain prose of the original.

Her success in avoiding political controversy was absolute. She did not find herself in papers based on leaks of partisan or one sided views she was alleged to have let slip in private because she did not allow herself such views. In conversation she was brilliant at being interested in whoever she spoke to without letting slip a viewpoint of her own that some would disagree with and think too political. She did ask the occasional question that made the news, as when she asked why the economic experts had not foreseen the coming economic crash in 2008. She spoke for most of the country when she asked that.

 

The sad end of the Queen’s life will be felt by us all. She has been our Queen all through our lives, a source of stability and a well known presence at our great national events.

Over seventy years of peace and rising national prosperity the Queen brought many subtle changes to the monarchy. She judged the evolving moods and attitudes of the nation. She quietly modernised the way the monarchy works and how we can relate to it. As the titled head  of a class conscious  society in the 1950s, proximity to the court  underwrote that culture. 70 years later the monarchy is more accessible to a  diverse range of people with more relaxed attitudes to etiquette.

She lived for service to her nation, for her family and for the animals and sports that helped enrich her life. Our longest reigning monarch, she ranks alongside Victoria as a long serving Queen who helped create the spirit of an era. The U.K. modernising  and rebuilding after the world war was self consciously the nation of the new Elizabethans. Our Queen throughout her seventy years stayed safely above politics and contentious opinions, the only way to ensure a constitutional monarchy flourishes.

The nation has lost its foremost diplomat and representative. She led the growth and work of the Commonwealth. Everywhere she went and in every country where had a role she created good will and graced many formal and entertaining events. I send my condolences to the royal family who have lost a mother, grandmother and great grandmother.

 

        1O DOWNING STREET

LONDON SW1A 2AA

www.gov.uk/number10

 

THE PRIME MINISTER

8 September 2022

 

 

Dear Colleague,
SUPPORTING PEOPLE AND BUSINESSES WITH THEIR ENERGY BILLS

 

On the steps of Downing Street on Tuesday, I pledged to take action to bring down energy bills. Today, within 48 hours of taking office, I have delivered on that promise.

 

This Government will bring forward emergency legislation to establish a new Energy Price Guarantee which will ensure that the average British household pays no more than £2,500 per year for their energy bills for the next two years from October.

 

This will save the average household at least £1,000 per year – giving certainty on energy prices so people can get through the winter, slowing inflation and making incomes go further. We will fully compensate energy suppliers for the cost of this emergency action – with the Chancellor setting out further details in the fiscal statement later this month. The new guarantee will apply to households in Great Britain, with the same level of support made available to households in Northern Ireland.

 

As part of the Energy Price Guarantee, we are temporarily suspending green levies – contributing £150 to the £1,000 yearly average saving. At this difficult time, it is right that households do not bear the cost of low-carbon electricity generation, but instead benefit from it.

 

And we will maintain the £400 Energy Bill Support Scheme for everyone, and the £1,200 of support for the most vulnerable households already announced earlier this year.

 

But I know that not everyone will be eligible for the schemes I have outlined above – especially those living in park homes, or who use heating oil in rural areas in constituencies such as mine. We will set up a discretionary fund to make sure that no one is left behind this winter.

 

Businesses will be offered an equivalent guarantee for six months for those hit by rising prices, and after those six months we will provide further support for vulnerable sectors, such as hospitality, including our local pubs. We will work with businesses to review where this should be targeted.

 

But we are also taking action to ensure that we are never in this position again. That means ending decades of short-term thinking which has allowed Putin to weaponise energy supplies as part of his illegal invasion of Ukraine.

We will ramp up energy supply and fix the regulation of our energy market. This will include establishing a new Energy Supply Taskforce, in the style of the Vaccine Taskforce, to negotiate new long-term contracts with suppliers to bring down energy costs.

 

Together with the Bank of England, we have secured a new £40 billion facility, so energy firms have the liquidity they need to manage volatility in energy markets, stabilising the market, reducing costs for the exchequer, and decreasing the chances of energy companies needing our support.

 

To fix domestic supply, we have to be bold. I want the UK to be a net energy exporter by 2040.

We will end the moratorium on shale extraction to get gas flowing as soon as six months’ time, boost renewables including wind and solar, launch Great British Nuclear later this month, and create a pro-investor environment to get more domestic supply projects off the ground, faster.

 

A review will be held to fix the longstanding problems within our energy regulation, and we will bring forward fundamental reforms to make our energy market fit for the challenges Britain faces today.

 

The Rt Hon Member for Kingswood, Chris Skidmore MP, will also lead a review to ensure we deliver net zero by 2050 in a way that is pro-business and pro-growth.

 

When I took office, I was clear that the next few months would not be easy. But I have every confidence that the resolve of the British people is strong enough to see us through the storm. Today’s package sends a clear message that this Government is with them every step of the way.

 

Yours Sincerely,

 

 

 

 

All MPs and Peers

Today we are told to expect a new energy policy. This note is based solely on press accounts of what the government may announce.  There will be two different parts to it. The first is to tackle the underlying problem. We have too little domestic energy. We are too dependent on imports from an energy starved Europe. We need to produce more of our own oil, gas, hydro power, renewable energy and nuclear energy. We need to prolong the lives of those gas, coal and nuclear stations where it is safe to do so, as we wait for the new investment to go in and provide us with sufficient alternative supply. I look forward to bold steps to promote more UK onshore and offshore oil and gas, which will bring in substantial tax revenues, create more well paid jobs and lower the CO2 generated compared with importing more LNG. I look forward to decisive action to commission new nuclear facilities through smaller nuclear reactors, to explore the commercial roll out of more ways of storing and using wind power and to ensure the lights and heating stay on this winter and next.

The second part is the need for immediate action to deal with the cost of living and business crisis created by extreme price movements in the gas and electricity markets here and on the continent, affecting our imports. If the government decides on a comprehensive price control as a temporary measure this would indeed take the worst pressure off business and families and save many jobs currently threatened by unaffordable business energy bills. It will also bring with it a substantial bill for taxpayers and the state in the form of borrowings needed to subsidise the supply of energy below the cost of production and purchase. That is why the government needs to reassure markets and taxpayers that everything will  be done to eliminate the demand/supply gap to bring prices down and to speed an elimination of price controls. Whilst they are in place the government will need to ensure it encourages investment in new energy supply. This requires prompt granting of licences, ending some of the penal taxes on the energy produced from new facilities and allowing contracts to supply that are reliable and make economic sense. Government itself needs to cut its own energy usage to show the way to reducing demand pressures on the  currently limited supply. One thing that most people do agree about in this contentious debate is the desirability of more insulation of buildings and more fuel efficient machines and processes where these can be afforded.

So the important questions  are likely to be

How will the government ensure proper incentives to greatly expand UK energy supply from domestic resources?

What can be expected of demand management in the public sector, and how can government help the private sector cut demand whilst still keeping warm and carrying out the work?

What controls will there be on the costs of this intervention?