The dust is settling on a momentous election which saw the back of the Tories and we have now seen the first glimpses of the kind of Government the Labour Party will form under Keir Starmer, with the Kings’ Speech this week outlining its planned legislative programme.

I think it’s important to give credit where it’s due. This programme of 40 planned Bills is a world away from those unveiled by the Tories as they railed against the dying of the light, using Parliament to peddle harmful culture wars. 

For example, Labour’s proposals to nationalise railways and strengthen renters’ rights in England are long overdue. These are both things that the Scottish Greens progressed during our time in Government in Edinburgh.

But for a Government elected with such a stonking majority, Labour is showing little ambition for real change.

The climate crisis is the greatest challenge humanity faces and unless we take bold action, now, we are condemning ourselves and many millions around the world to misery. Climate chaos will cost lives, wreck livelihoods, and further destabilise the globe. Any government wanting real long-term stability must put radical climate action front and centre of its mission – and its budgets.

Instead, this Labour government is promising just £1.6bn a year of investment via its GB Energy quango. That’s nowhere near enough to meet the scale of the challenge. Indeed, the last Scottish Budget that Greens were part of devising included £4.7bn of investment in climate and nature. Labour used to say it wanted to spend £28bn a year. We clearly need to see much, much more from Labour on climate.

The Government’s programme also misses a huge opportunity to help those in greatest need right now.

The two-child benefit cap, introduced by the Conservatives in 2015, keeps hundreds of thousands of families trapped in poverty. It’s a policy born of class hatred. It’s a policy which forces women who conceive through rape or coercion to relive their trauma to get an exemption. It’s a policy whose social cost vastly outweighs any saving to the welfare budget. It’s inhumane and the Labour government could abolish it tomorrow if it wanted to, but it has so far refused. Instead, it has pledged to set up a vague task force, which will invariably say the cap must be scrapped.

These are just two reasons why keeping pressure on the Labour government from the progressive left will be vital. That’s what the four English Green MPs will do, working with others in the parliament to push the Government to be bolder and act with more urgency on the biggest issues we face.

That’s the record Scottish Greens have built here in Glasgow which helped to deliver our best result by far in a Westminster election, despite facing an unfair voting system. We know there's a huge appetite for transformative policies that benefit people and the planet. That’s what we’ll keep working for; let's all hope this Labour government steps up too.