It is expected that employers who can prove that such additional burdens can
harm the business will have dispensation. Quite how this will work remains to be
seen. The Basics of the Queen's Speech to Parliament
- Wed 15th November 2006.
(What PM Blair wanted - read out by Her Majesty the Queen.)
Mental Health Free Bus Travel
Child Support Agency
Incapacity Benefit
Later State Pensions
Mental health
The Mental Health Bill will amend existing legislation to ensure that people
with serious mental problems receive the treatment they need to protect them and
others from harm. Changes will include the introduction of supervised treatment
in the community for some patients discharged from compulsory treatment in
hospital.
Supervised Community Treatment would be designed to ensure patients continue to
take medication following discharge and prevent relapses. Every year, around 55
to 60 murders are committed by mental health patients and the provisions
announced today are intended to make such tragedies less frequent.
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Free bus travel
Older and disabled people will be able to travel free on buses anywhere in
England at off-peak times from April 2008 under legislation announced in the
Queen’s Speech. The Concessionary Bus Travel Bill will implement Gordon Brown’s
announcement in this year’s Budget about extending the existing deal for the
disabled and those aged 60 or more.
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Child support
The troubled Child Support Agency is finally to be abolished. The Child Support
Bill will bring down the curtain on the CSA and replace it with a new, smaller
body intended to provide a simpler and more effective way of collecting child
maintenance.
The Bill will end the requirement that all lone parents with care
responsibilities who claim state benefits - mostly mothers - must also submit a
claim to receive child maintenance. The Bill will also include tough new
enforcement powers to deal with parents who repeatedly fail to pay maintenance,
such as the suspension of passports and the imposition of curfews.
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Incapacity benefit
The Government is to press ahead with controversial reforms of incapacity
benefit tabled in the last Parliament,. The changes, replacing the old benefit
with a tougher Employment and Support Allowance, are included in the Welfare
Reform Bill, which was introduced into the Commons in July this year and carried
over to the new session when it failed to reach the statute book before the end
of the parliamentary year.
The Department for Work and Pensions says that the reforms are intended to help
an estimated 1 million people who want to work in their efforts to get off
incapacity benefit and into jobs. But critics say it could lead to disabled and
sick people being coerced into taking on work they are not fit enough to do.
The Welfare Reform Bill, which applies to the whole of the UK, also introduces
changes to housing benefit designed to combat fraud by giving local authorities
greater powers to investigate and prosecute.
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Later pensions
The Queen's Speech confirmed plans to raise the state pension age to 68 for both
men and women and relink pensions to earnings. The proposed legislation will
raise the state pension age gradually to 68 by 2046 in response to increasing
longevity of life. According to the Government, this would ensure fairness
between generations while at the same time secure the long-term financial
stability and sustainability of the pension system.
Other parts of the proposed Pensions Bill are aimed at modernising existing
rules to make it fairer to women and carers. As such, the number of years it
takes to build a full basic State Pension will fall from 44 years for men and 39
years for women to 30 years for everyone. According to the Government, by 2010
70 per cent of women reaching State Pension Age would have a full basic pension
compared to only 30 per cent today. This proportion would increase to more than
90 per cent by 2025.
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