The King’s Speech set out some key foundations for recovery after 14 years of austerity, privatisation and squeezed living standards. I was particularly pleased to see plans to take rail back into public ownership; strengthen workers’ rights through Labour’s New Deal for Working People; establish a publicly owned energy supplier, GB Energy, to drive through the clean energy transition; ban no fault evictions; and scrap non-dom tax status. These are policies that can provide a basis for renewal and recovery and I look forwards to working to ensure that we deliver them.

One absence however, was the two-child benefit cap. Removing this cap would lift 300,000 children out of poverty. I was pleased to put my name to Kim Johnson MP’s amendment urging the government to do this. I was also pleased to put my name to an amendment from Zarah Sultana MP, urging our government to suspend arms sales to Israel and uphold international law. The government has called for a ceasefire in Gaza. It is vital that it now backs up these words with actions to prevent further onslaught.