As a country and as a County, we have risen to challenges with no precedent in recent history—leading the response to Putin’s attack on Ukraine and protecting lives and livelihoods in the battle against Covid—but these events have caused considerable disruptions to the global economy and our local economy in Buckinghamshire.

The Queen’s Speech set out 38 new bills helping us continue delivering on our top priorities and providing the leadership needed in the years ahead.  

These include:

• Providing £22 billion of support to help families tackle the global cost of living increase, and legislating to deliver a cleaner, more secure and affordable home-grown energy system that will cut household bills for families.
   
• Supporting people into work through our multi-billion-pound Plan For Jobs, with a boosted National Living Wage of £9.50 per hour—an extra £1,000 a year for an average full-time worker—whilst improving our procurement regime by increasing opportunities for smaller, local businesses.
   
• Making our transport system more reliable and efficient for passengers by putting Great British Railways on a statutory footing.
   
• Raising standards in schools, reforming funding and encouraging attendance by delivering a stronger and more highly performing education system that benefits every child in Buckinghamshire.
   
• Recruiting 20,000 new police officers nationwide—of which 368 new officers have already been recruited in the Thames Valley (up 368 since 2019 and up 102 since 2010) —and strengthening victims’ rights to restore confidence that their voices will be heard and that perpetrators will be brought to justice. 
   
• Spending £36 billion on the NHS to clear the post-Covid backlogs, ending the lottery of unpredictable care costs, recruiting 27,000 nurses, and investing £1.5 billion to create an additional 50 million GP appointments. We are also on track to build 40 new hospitals alongside ambitions to roll out 160 community diagnostic centres. In addition, we continue to hit all our vaccination targets.
   
• Ensuring patients suffering from mental health conditions have greater control over their treatment, modernising services and providing a more personalised level of care, and allowing more people nearing the end of their life the dignity of fast-tracked access to key disability benefits through our Social Security Bill.
   
• Working closely with our allies to maintain a united NATO in the face of Putin’s horrific aggression as we continue to invest in our gallant Armed Forces and stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine on the international stage.  

If you have any questions about any of these policies, please do write to Greg at www.gregsmith.co.uk/contact and he will do the best he can to help you understand and access them.