Queen's Speech Kicks Off New Parliament

The Queen's speech begins the 'new Parliament', a point at which the Government announces its plan for the coming parliamentary terms.

The focus, as expected, is on recovery from the Coronavirus pandemic. Further emphasis was placed on levelling up across the UK.

For the data and marketing industry, some relevant bills were announced:

First a draft Online Safety Bill will "make the UK the safest place in the world to be online, improving protections for users, especially children, whilst protecting freedom of expression, making companies responsible for their users’ safety online, and supporting a thriving and fast-growing digital sector"

This, along with the Online Harms legislation, may bring new regulation for online advertising and social media platforms.

The Queen also announced a Skills and Post-16 Education Bill aimed at "supporting lifetime skills guarantee to enable flexible access to high-quality education and training throughout people’s lives.” The government wishes to realign the system around the needs of employers so that people are trained for the skills gaps that exist now and in the future, in sectors the needs including construction, digital, clean energy and manufacturing.

Details of both proposals will be given in the coming weeks and months.

This term will also see the further proposals for the National Data Strategy, which the DMA has been heavily involved in, and will have significant implications for the future of the industry.

Other key announcements in the Queen's speech:

Research and Development

• We are committed to making the UK a global superpower, with a world-leading research and development environment. Innovation is a key pillar of our approach to tackling the effects of the pandemic and levelling up the UK.
• R&D will continue to be critical to the economic and social recovery from the impact of COVID-19, enabling us to build back better for a greener, healthier and more resilient UK. Our goal is to further strengthen science, research and innovation across the UK, making them central to tackling the major challenges of today and in the future.
• On average, each public pound invested in R&D across our portfolio ultimately leverages around £2 of additional private sector investment and creates £7 of net benefits.
• The Government is investing £14.9 billion in R&D in 2021-22. This investment means Government R&D spending is now at its highest level in four decades. We are committed to increasing public expenditure on R&D to £22 billion, helping to deliver on our target to increase total UK R&D investment to 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2027.
• In the R&D Roadmap, we set out our priorities for boosting innovation in the economy. We want to make the UK a world-leading place to innovate and bring new products and services to market.
• BEIS will publish an Innovation Strategy this summer to inspire, facilitate and unleash innovation across the UK; supporting and harnessing the tremendous capability of UK innovators to boost future prosperity locally and nationwide.
• We have already introduced the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) Bill, to unleash the potential of the UK’s world-class research and science base.
• Our Review of Research Bureaucracy will advise on practical solutions to substantially reducing unnecessary research bureaucracy, freeing up researchers to devote more time to their academic roles and pursuing world-class research.