A Failure of Promises

You made me promises, promises

Knowing I'd believe

Promises, promises

You knew you'd never keep

This is part of the lyrics of a song called Promises, Promises by the Naked Eyes, even though the song is from the 80s it still feels very accurate today, because we are faced by a government that is making promise after promise but fail to deliver on them and these past few weeks it has been getting clearer and clearer to us and to the public that they are a façade.

In the two months ahead of Christmas the Government has made almost 60 promises during Minister’s Question sessions, ranging from the Prime Minister herself to the DCMS Secretary at the end of the period, the latter one even making eight promises during the MQs. The amount of promises that have been made by this Government is insane, considering some of these promises already have been broken in the few months or weeks that they have been made. This shows a disdain for the British people, a Government that does not do the thing that they have should be doing. I believe that this is something that we should all talk about, the failings of this Government, the overpromising and the misleading of the British public.

The first example, at the end of October the Justice Secretary was asked by the Shadow Justice Secretary about her plans, the Justice Secretary responded: “I and my department are undertaking a review into the state of the Ministry of Justice, examining the work of previous governments such as your own, and the current state of the prison estate. We will soon have a picture of where we stand, potential shortfalls and ways forward for the ministry, and areas we need to improve.” Later she added, “I hope to have both my reviews completed and ready to present to the Right Honourable member by the second of those sessions.”

When the Justice Secretary was asked about these reviews and their timeline during the latest set of MQs, the answer given to me was: “I must apologise for not having a timeline for this right now, but the review will be released when it is completed and the plans will follow soon after.” The review should have been done, we should be able to hold the Justice Secretary to account in the way that she herself has said that we should.

In last November the Defence Secretary outlined that he was going “to bring a statement to the House soon on what action the government will be taking to improve conditions at such an important dockyard.” Over two months later and no statement has been brought forward by the Government on the conditions in Port Rosyth in Scotland, even though the Defence Secretary said he’d do this ‘soon’. Are the issues of Scotland not important for the Defence Secretary or for this Government?

The SSRI Secretary did the exact same thing, saying “I can confirm that a statement will be made shortly to the House on research cooperation between the United Kingdom and the European Union.” Two months further and we’re still waiting on this statement from the Government on this cooperation between the UK and the EU. Another promise being broken.

The Work and Welfare Secretary has been promising a plan on tackling youth unemployment with the Department for Education, but two months after they were still unable to give a timeline or even a hint on what they are going to be doing, saying: “My Department is still co-operating with the Education Department on this, and a bill is likely to be published before the end of the Parliament addressing this.” The emphasis on ‘likely’ even diminishes the hope of this plan to ever see the light of day.

These are just four examples of the Government promising and not delivering on their promises, we could have easily talked about the Common Veterinary Area, the Whistleblower Board, the Memorandum of Understanding with France, the Home Renovation Fund, the Chick Culling Bill, or the BBC Royal Charter. The Government has to do better, they have to improve their work and not fail and lie to the British public like they are doing now.