King Charles is expected to preside over the State Opening of Parliament and will set out the government's plans on various issues, including climate, housing, and others.
The event on Tuesday could very well be British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's first and last so-called King's Speech before an election next year. The prime minister will most likely use the event to press on with what his team hopes will be vote-winning policies that he outlined earlier this year.
State Opening of Parliament
Sunak is expected to press on with watering down climate measures to reach Britain's net zero goal by 2050. This comes as he tries to create a dividing line between his governing Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party. The latter is seen to be way ahead in the polls in the region.
The prime minister will also drive his agenda to crack down on crime and introduce plans to expand the use of what up until now has been the rarely used whole-life term to Britain's most serious offenders and force criminals to face their victims in court, as per Reuters.
In a statement before the speech, Sunak said that he wants everyone across the country to have the pride and peace of mind that comes with knowing that the community is safe. He added that this is his vision of what a better Britain looks like.
He added that they must always strive to do more, taking the right long-term decisions for the nation, and keeping the worst offenders locked up for longer periods. Sunak noted that in the most despicable cases, the evil criminals must never be allowed to be free on the streets again.
Sunak is set to introduce a raft of legislation at the event, such as the Sentencing Bill that means convicted murderers, who carry out sexually motivated attacks, will automatically remain imprisoned for the rest of their lives with no prospect of release.
The King's Speech
On Tuesday, the monarch will sit on a gilded throne and read out the King's Speech, which is a list of planned laws drawn up by the United Kingdom's Conservative government. King Charles will be performing a role that his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, fulfilled for 70 years and one that other British monarchs carried out before her in a tradition that stretches back centuries, according to the Associated Press.
Britain is known to hold elections every four or five years as the government's term is divided into Parliament sessions that are roughly a year long each. Every single one starts with a grand State Opening ceremony. It is where politicians and the monarch symbolically enact the tussle between the Crown and Parliament that produced Britain's constitutional monarchy.
This year's event would mark the first time since 1951 that Parliament will be opened with a King's Speech rather than a Queen's speech. Queen Elizabeth II delivered 67 speeches during her 70-year reign. The missed speeches were twice from when she was pregnant and once when she delegated Charles to read the one in May 2022 on her behalf, said ABC News.
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