The State Opening of Parliament took place which marks the formal start of the Parliamentary year. The Queen delivered her speech which sets out the government’s agenda for the coming session, outlining proposed policies and legislation. The government failed to bring forward the transformative policies needed in order to tackle the climate emergency and rebuild our economy and public services after 11 years of Tory austerity which left us unprepared for the pandemic.

Nearly 1.7 million people are currently unemployed. This is forecast to rise to 2.2 million by the end of the year and includes 600,000 young people. I would like to have seen the government bring forward new measures to build on the North East’s renewable technology capabilities, creating quality ‘green’ jobs to tackle the long-term systemic unemployment we suffer in the North East.