Posts Tagged ‘Queen’s Speech’

Ged and myself have just finished contributing to Left Foot Forward, a political blog that aims to “provide evidence-based analysis on British politics, news and policy developments.”

We have had a good detailed look at the Digital Economy Bill, that was recently unveiled in the Queen’s Speech.

So please feel free to have a look and make any comments.

The Queen’s Speech, which took place last Wednesday, went as we predicted with proposals announced on fiscal responsibility, financial services, constitutional reform, education and energy amongst others. The Speech was short and to the point with only 13 bills and 2 draft bills announced and no announcements on Health (one of the largest Government departments), immigration or MPs’ expenses.

The Speech was touted as being the most political for a decade, as was to be expected with a General Election taking place next year and once the Queen had left Parliament Gordon Brown and David Cameron drew the battle lines. The Prime Minster defended the speech saying that it showed that the Government was ’standing up for Britain’ and criticised the Conservatives over their inheritance tax policy, whilst the Leader of the Opposition responded by calling the Speech ‘half-baked’ and a ‘waste of the country’s time’. These soundbites, like the contents of the Speech itself, were not particularly surprising.

There is now a period of reflection in the House of Commons as the Speech will be debated for no fewer than 6 days. With that in mind we gathered together leading parliamentarians to see what they made of the speech:

Dr Des Turner MP

Labour Member of Parliament for Brighton Kemptown

“Given that the Parliamentary Session will be shortened by the General Election this was a very ambitious Queen’s Speech, containing very real and useful legislation.

I totally disagree with those who think it is simply part of the Election manifesto - such claims are very wide of the mark.

These measures are very important and legislation like the care for the elderly Bill are part of a long overdue revolution for people who are in the latter part of their lives.”

Chloe Smith MP

Conservative Member of Parliament for Norwich North

“For me the Queen’s Speech was a mixed bag. For the most part it was all about the Labour Party serving itself rather than the country. It was a case of politics not Government.

There were a number of measures that simply served to create the next Labour election manifesto and you have to ask yourself if these measures are so important then why have they taken 12 years to be implemented? Furthermore, a number of measures were policies that the Government should be getting on with anyway rather than legislating on.

Having said that there was one measure that my constituents might welcome, which was the announcement on flood defences.”

Lord Avebury

Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Spokesperson for the Home Office

“The Queen’s Speech has rightly been criticised for pretending that so many Bills can be passed in the few days of Parliamentary sittings before the 2010 general election. When there is no chance of getting most of them into law it is farcical.

I hoped there would be more realism but this is obviously just for the shop window. Nobody would guess that six months from now a new government will have to make huge spending cuts.

The absence of any mention of a referendum on electoral reform, widely supported in all three parties, is a serious disappointment.”

The Bills that were announced today were as follows:

Personal Care at Home Bill:

This will provide free personal care in their own homes for those with the highest need. Up to 350,000 people with the greatest needs could benefit from free charges and top-up fees for care in their own homes.

Children’s, Schools and Families Bill:

There will be a new duty on local authorities to act when parents are unhappy. Where standards are ‘unacceptably low’, schools will be closed. There will be an entitlement to one-to-one tuition if a pupil is falling behind.

Fiscal Responsibility Bill:

The Bill will enact the Government’s commitment to halve the deficit in four years.

Financial Services Bill:

The Bill will give the Government the power to intervene on bonuses, will create a new consumer financial advice body and enable firms to be less reliant on the taxpayers.

Crime and Security Bill:

The Bill will require parenting assessment to be carried out on parents of children aged 10 to 15 who are being considered for an anti-social care order. The police swill have to hold beat meetings;  perpetrators of domestic violence will be banned from their homes; DNA records on adults arrested but not charged will be kept for six years; there will be compulsory licensing for wheel-clampers.

Digital Economy Bill:

New age ratings for computer games will be introduced to protect children; universally available broadband in the UK will be rolled out; tackling on-line copyright infringement; preparing the UK to take advantage of the digital age.

Energy Bill:

More help for the most vulnerable households with their energy bills; a levy on electricity suppliers  to subsidise carbon capture and storage plants; Ofgem will be required to ensure customers get a better, fairer deal.

Flood and Water Management Bill:

Better protection for businesses, communities and homes from the risks of extreme weather.

Equality Bill:

There will be a new public sector duty to narrow the gap between rich and poor, ban age discrimination outside the workplace and introduce reporting for large employers on gender pay. Agency workers will receive equal treatment with staff members after 12 weeks in a job.

Child Poverty Bill:

The Bill will provide for the Government pledge to eradicate child poverty by 2020 and will set up a commission to monitor progress.

Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill:

The Civil Service will be put on a statutory footing; continued reform of the House of Lords - they will have the power to expel a Member; by-elections to elect hereditary peers will be ended. Peers will be allowed to resign and disclaim their peerages.

The draft House of Lords Reform Bill will set out how the Government will bring about a wholly or substantially selected second chamber of Parliament.

Bribery Bill:

The bill would help to reinforce integrity in the business and public sectors. There will be a comprehensive UK strategy for tackling foreign bribery and of bribing a foreign public official in order to obtain or retain business.

Cluster and Munitions Bill:

This bill will ban the use, development production, stockpiling, retention or transfer of cluster munitions.

Draft Bills

House of Lords Reform Bill:

Further reform for the House of Lords including ending the election of hereditary peers.

International Development Bill:

The Government will be committed to spend 0.7% of gross national income on international development by 2013.

The real question is - will this be enough to keep Gordon Brown at No 10?

What do you think?

The Government will offer free personal care in their own homes for those with the “highest needs”. This could benefit up to 350,000 people.

Legislation will be brought in to halve the current deficit and increase financial regulation

Commitment to ensure 0.7% of GDP for International Development

The Government will seek to abolish child poverty by 2020.

There will be a bill to continue the reform of the House of Lords

Other issues include:

Measures to deal with anti-Social behaviour

A Bill to enhance digital communications

A Bill to enshrine education guarantees

An Energy Bill to support carbon capture and storage

High Speed Rail Bill

Flood protection measures

Devolving more power to Wales

Legislation to ban cluster munitions

No real surprises contained in the Speech. More details will be provided on the content of the speech and on the Speech debate in the House of Commons later this afternoon.

As the Queen arrives at Westminster it is worth remembering that the Monarch is not permitted to enter the House of Commons and is only allowed into the Palace of Westminster by invitation. It remains the only royal palace to which the Monarch has no automatic right of entry.

Charles I was the last Monarch to enter the Commons in 1642 when he attempted to arrest John Pym and four other Members of Parliament for treason. The Speaker William Lenthall, when asked to point out the conspirators famously replied:

“May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here.”

However, the Monarch has been invited today to open Parliament and she has now arrived at the Monarch’s entrance.

Black Rod will approach the House of Commons and the door will be ceremonially slammed in his face. He will ten use his rod to knock the door three times. This is to allow the Commons to confirm that he is not the Monarch and signifies that although the Monarch is on the premises he is merely a messenger delivering her command.

The Yeoman of the Guard (the queen’s bodyguard) have searched the cellars at the Palace of Westminster. A tradition that dates back to 1605 and the gunpowder plot to blow up the Palace of Westminster.

Although the occasion is primarily remembered for Guy (Guido) Fawkes and commemorated on Guy Fawkes’s night on the 5th November each year, the principal conspirator was Robert Catesby

He died in a shoot out with the King’s supporters some days after the discovery of the plot. Now largely forgotten, Catesby was one of the leaders behind the plot while Guy Fawkes was only a minor figure.

In another nice historical touch, Parliament has to send a “Hostage” to Buckingham Palace and (s)he must be in place before the Queen can leave for the State Opening. This is to ensure the safe return of the Monarch - a little dramatic nowadays perhaps but more essential in Britain’s turbulent past.

The 13th Queen’s Speech by a Labour Government (and possibly the last for a while) takes place in the House of Commons today.

The Queen will set out the Government’s policies for the forthcoming few months before the next General Election. In common with the past few years, the content of the Speech has been substantially leaked in advance so there should be no real surprises.

The legislative agenda is likely to include Bills on Education and Families, Crime and Security, Social Care, Energy and Health.

The timings for the Speech are as follows:

Royal Procession to arrive at the Palace of Westminster at 11.15am.

Queen’s Speech will take place at 11.30am (approx) the Queen will read the speech from the throne in the House of Lords

Motion for the Humble Address will commence at 2.30pm in the House of Commons and 3.30pm in the House of Lords

Throughout the day we will keep you updated on the Bills as they are outlined.

The Queen's Speech - far from a royal affair.

On Wednesday this week the Queen will stand before the House of Lords and present the Government’s agenda for the coming year. This is an extremely important event; a chance for the Government to highlight its upcoming priorities and for the opposition parties to take them to task over their proposals and suggest how they would do things differently. With a General Election to be called by June 2010, this is to be the last Queen’s Speech before the election. For this reason I’d like to take a look at the importance of the speech and give some predictions of what to look out for:

Why is the Queen’s Speech important?

I think there are three fundamental reasons that this year’s Queen’s Speech is so critical:

• Policy: In a normal year the Queen’s Speech is important because it sets out the Government’s policy agenda for the coming year and outlines the Bills that will be proposed. As this is an election year the speech is essential as it is one of the Government’s last chances to state publicly and formally their agenda for the coming year and stake a claim to hold onto power come the election. It is also a good opportunity to draw the battle lines with the Conservative Party on key policy issues such as finance, education, crime and health ahead of the General Election. For this reason the opposition parties will be looking to discredit the Government and highlight their own policy priorities
• The Polls: 4 of the last 5 UK polls have put the Conservative Party 14 points ahead of the Labour Government with the Lib Dems trailing 4-10 points behind Labour. Taking the average scores for each party over the last five polls the Conservative Party would have a majority of 58 if these trends were reflected at the next General Election. But just a 2 point drop for the Conservatives and a 2 point rise for the Labour Party would deliver a hung parliament. So for Labour the Queen’s Speech is a chance to showcase a range of policies and hopefully reduce the Conservative Party’s poll lead. For both opposition parties it is a chance to analyse Gordon Brown’s proposals; discredit them and promote their own policies. It is important for the Conservative Party and Lib Dems not to give way significantly to Labour in the polls and it gives the opposition parties a chance to look at some of Labour’s headline policies in detail and criticise them publicly
• Time is running out: With only 70 more sitting days of Parliament until the next election Labour only have three big opportunities to state their case before the election is called: The Queen’s Speech; the Pre-Budget Report and the Budget. Of those three opportunities the Queen’s Speech is most focused on policy direction and prospective bills and sets the policy agenda. Also, it does not have to focus so much on important economic figures such as economic growth and unemployment, which have been sources of distress during the economic downturn. The opposition parties will be keen for the Government not to steal a march in the polls on the back of the Queen’s Speech. They will see it as a small victory if the polls do not radically change on the back of the Queen’s speech as it will mean that Labour are running out of high profile opportunities to change public perception.

What is predicted?

The Speech: It is suggested that Gordon Brown will go for a short sharp Queen’s Speech highlighting headline bills on: fiscal responsibility; social care; energy; policing and crime; health and education. Gordon Brown is clearly gearing these bills up to be the basis for his election manifesto and it is being suggested that the Bills to be proposed are specifically targeted at areas that the Conservatives have opposed, such as targets in the NHS and the DNA database. This is clearly throwing the gauntlet down to the Conservatives Party and defining the political battlegrounds between the two main parties before the election. The Government are looking to take the initiative and outmanoeuvre the Conservative Party in key policy areas.

The Conservative response: The Conservatives are likely to oppose the Speech in two different ways. Firstly, David Cameron will almost certainly criticise Gordon Brown for announcing policies late in the day; not having the time to bring them through before the next General Election and that this is blatant headline chasing, which does not change the fact that Gordon Brown has lost the voters’ trust. Secondly, each Shadow Secretary of State will outline both the principles they disagree with in the Speech and the detail. They will be looking to define their position in opposition to the Government’s proposals. The Conservative Party will face a race against time; they will want to wrest control of the electoral battleground from Labour by defusing any popular Labour announcements made in the Speech and highlighting their counter measures. David Cameron will want to try and focus media attention on Gordon Brown’s weakness and the failings in the Speech rather than allowing the media debate to focus on Brown’s new policy announcements.

The Lib Dem approach: As the third largest party the Lib Dems are in a difficult position. The Leader, Nick Clegg, has come out and called for the Queen’s Speech to be scrapped in favour of an emergency announcement on political reform. Clearly this is not a viable option as the speech is a long-standing tradition, but it has given Nick Clegg front-page media attention before the Speech and gives him a platform from which to discredit the Government’s proposals. For Nick Clegg it is a case of chasing any possible headlines lest the Lib Dems be sidelined in favour of the main battle between the Conservative Party and Labour Government.

These are just predictions of course, so follow Ruder Finn on this blog and on Twitter (@Ruderfinnuk) on Wednesday 18^th of November from 11am for our build up and live minute-by-minute analysis of the Queen’s Speech.

Please leave your own predictions or any insights as I would love to have a flavour of any important issues people are focusing on or awaiting from the speech.

We have the Queen’s Speech today marking the State Opening of Parliament in which the Queen will outline the Government’s legislative programme for the coming year.

So, what can we expect?

This year, the speech is more about what is not in it rather than what is.

Traditionally, Governments push through contentious legislation in the early years of a Parliament and reserve a light and popular programme for the year(s) running into the General Election.

Some controversial legislation has been dropped from the Speech and some elements of the media have concentrated more on these measures than those that will be included.

We are assisted in our guesswork by the pre-legislative statement made by the Government earlier this year and by the extraordinary “pre”-Budget statement last week which was a Budget in all but name.

We can assume that the economic rescue and mitigation packages announced in the pre-Budget statement will be reserved for the Budget itself (some of these measures have already been passed by secondary orders) so it is unlikely that we will see a comprehensive economic measure being announced today.

Banking regulation however, is being rushed through to stop banks calling in loans or changing conditions without proper notice. The Government will confirm that the banks’ voluntary code is being made compulsory. Perhaps legislation is a better way to introduce this than simply raising it at the shareholders’ meeting.

The centrepiece will certainly be the Welfare Reform Bill which will require the unemployed to undergo skills assessments and incapacity benefit claimants to be medically assessed…but these are not particularly new measures.

What will make this Bill stand out are the controversial provisions to force benefit claimants to undergo lie detector tests, to force single parents into work and possibly cut welfare benefit of those refusing job offers, all of which will set the Government on a collision course with the Unions and libertarian groups.

Also included will be the Crime Bill designed to stop happy hour (or excessive drinking anyway) and bring changes to the prostitution laws to criminalise the purchaser of sexual favours rather than the supplier.

There will be a Health Bill to introduce the long-awaited NHS Constitution and to promote public health initiatives.

Along with an Equality Bill to introduce more stringent anti-discriminatory legislation and the Citizenship Bill to require immigrants to learn English, these will be the main measures announced today.

Among the Bills being dropped is the Data Communications Bill which would have recorded the details of everyone’s emails, mobile phone calls and text messages. There will be a consultation instead.

The Bill of Rights, which would include further reform of the House of Lords, The Coroners’ Bill which provided for inquests to be held in private (without juries) where intercept evidence as used have also been dropped.

All of this though may be overshadowed by any demonstration by the Conservatives following the arrest of Damien Green.

We shall have to wait and see.

Although most commentators still plump for 2010, we shall have to wait and see if this is the precursor to a 2009 General Election.