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Probably42 News - May-2022
Welcome to our May Newsletter!
Since the last newsletter we’ve been quite encouraged by responses from Government on our input on the Digital Safety Bill. Unusually we got a very detailed and largely reassuring response item by item. This raised some follow-on questions which were also responded to in detail. So, a very good advert for democracy and Government responsiveness on this occasion.
Our discussion topic for April was Ukraine Invasion - What can we learn for the future? A bit outside our realms of expertise but our 'ordinary people's perception' provides some seeds of ideas and an attempt to identify areas where initiatives are needed.
Forthcoming Discussion
Our discussion for May is the Queen’s Speech with focus on the Cost of Living aspects, as to discuss all 38 Bills would stretch even our debating skills. You can see the proposed agenda for our discussion groups at Topic for May 2022 - The Queen's Speech but you might be interested in a bit of background information:
The four sections of the Queens Speech are:
- Grow and strengthen the economy and help ease the cost of living for families – the immediate priority
- Make streets safer by cutting crime and ensuring the police and security services have the powers they need
- Funding NHS to clear Covid backlog
- Providing leadership needed in challenging times (Ukraine, Foreign Affairs etc)
The document Queen's Speech 2022: background briefing notes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) offers quite a lot of detail. It’s 140 pages so I don’t suggest you read it all! However, it’s worth reading pages 7-13 (The Speech itself and Exec Summary, or even just one of these) and also worth browsing the contents, which lists the 38 Bills. If you want to go one step further just browse the purpose at the beginning of each Bill description.
You might also be interested to listen to Parliamentlive.tv - Treasury Committee when the Governor of the B of E and members of the MPC appeared before it to be grilled over inflation. If you’ve never listened to one of the many committee meetings this is well worth dipping into to get a view of democracy in action.
Government Information that may interest you
As usual we highlight three more examples of information on Parliament activity and outputs which may interest you:
- An important initiative on the longer term prospects for the jobs market Future of Work Review – Terms of Reference - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
- The Rwanda Deportation scheme which has generated much debate Memorandum of Understanding between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the government of the Republic of Rwanda for the provision of an asylum partnership arrangement - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) .
- The outcome of Boris’s recent trip to India UK-India joint statement April 2022: Towards shared security and prosperity through national resilience - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) .
Why not join a Group?
If you’d like to join one of the Probably42 discussion groups held via videoconferencing, just email in response to this newsletter and we’ll send you more details. We very much want a diversity of viewpoints, so you can be sure your views will be welcomed. Remember it’s about relaxed discussion and having an enjoyable time, with hopefully some useful ideas identified.
We also want to encourage face-to-face real world discussion groups, as feeders into the main online discussions. If you’d like to find out more about the one in Berkshire, or if you’d like to see one start in your area, just email in response to this newsletter and we’ll send you details.
Feedback
We always welcome any feedback, thoughts, ideas or questions about Probably42. Simply reply to this newsletter and you’ll receive a personal reply.
All the best
Tony