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Mr. Fabricant: Will the Prime Minister give way?
We want laws that protect the public, which is why we will allow the House a free vote on the banning of all handguns, and pay our debt to the victims of Dunblane.
We want a Government in touch with the people whom they serve; which is why we will introduce a lottery Bill that will direct new funds from the mid-week lottery to the causes in education and health that would not otherwise receive funding through public expenditure. That is long overdue and massively popular: the people's money used for the people's causes.
That is the ambitious but practical programme of a new Labour Government who have their feet on the ground and sound values in their heart: the necessary mixture of idealism and realism that the modern age demands.
The British people do not have false expectations. They simply want a Government with clear leadership, who will start to get the essentials right. We will not put right the damage of 18 years in 18 days, or even in 18 months, but in 12 days we have already shown how we can make a start and make a difference. We have started as we mean to go on: offering leadership and setting the agenda, rather than having it set for us. In short, we are doing the job that we were elected to do: governing for the whole nation.
This is a Queen's Speech of which my Government can be proud. It builds on the hope and optimism that the election set coursing through the veins of our nation. It shows that change can come; it shows a Government rooted firmly in the centre ground, in touch with the people and governing for the people. It reflects the people's priorities. It shows the people's Government rebuilding trust between government and governed.
Mr. Paddy Ashdown (Yeovil):
Madam Speaker--[Interruption.]
Madam Speaker:
Order. I ask hon. Members to leave quietly and quickly, because a right hon. Member is waiting to speak.
Mr. Ashdown:
I join the Prime Minister and the leader of the Conservative party in paying tribute to the people whom they mentioned who are no longer with us. I also pay tribute to one whom they inadvertently left out. Nicholas Baker was a close neighbour of mine and I shall miss him greatly. I am sure that the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition would join me in that tribute.
I should also like to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) for their remarkable speeches. The Prime Minister believed that there was only one copy of the right hon. Gentleman's book--I beg pardon. I must get it right, but it is so difficult. The leader of the Conservative party believed that there was only one copy of the right hon. Gentleman's book, and the Prime Minister thought that there were two, but I can reveal that there are three copies in the House of Commons Library. No doubt, the fact that the right hon. Gentleman has been called to propose the Gracious Speech has done wonders for the sales of his book.
I, too, have read the book--no, I have not. My researcher has read it, and has drawn my attention to the right hon. Gentleman's comment about two diseases that strike Cabinet Ministers. The first is called ministerialitis, which occurs when one puts the enjoyment of ministerial office before all other matters. The second is departmentalitis, which occurs when one puts the interest of the Department before all other matters, including those of the Government. We shall be watching for any outbreak of those diseases in the new Government.
The hon. Member for Sunderland, South was once asked why he was in Parliament, and he said that it was to intervene at inconvenient moments to ask embarrassing questions of the Home Secretary. We hope that he will continue to perform that role, because we have a suspicion that it will still be required.
One of the problems about sharing a book with the leader of the Conservative party is that I had prepared the same joke as the right hon. Gentleman--the one about the notice left for the burglar reading, "Dear Burglar, I have been cleaned out: nothing left to take." I was going to comment that, having looked at the Queen's Speech and compared it to our manifesto, I knew how that felt, but the right hon. Gentleman got there before us--which perhaps tells us more about the Queen's Speech than about the notice left for the burglar.
Mr. Mullin:
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks. For the benefit of historical record, I should make it clear that no such notice ever appeared on my front door, although I was burgled more than 20 times.
Mr. Ashdown:
Never mind. It makes a good story, and the truth should never be allowed to spoil a story.
I congratulate the Prime Minister on his election, and on the election of his Government. He has shown remarkable courage and determination in reforming his party, and has won himself a remarkable mandate--probably the strongest mandate held by any Prime Minister, certainly since the war. I believe that he has behind him the good wishes of the nation, and he has mine and those of my party as well. I do not wish to reiterate the arguments of the general election; I think that the moment for that has now passed, and that we ought to look to the future.
A Queen's Speech is always important, because it sets out the direction that the Government intend to take over the next year. The Queen's Speech of a new Government is even more important, because it sets out the direction that that Government intend to take over the next five years. I hope, however, that this Queen's Speech will prove even more important than that: I hope that it marks the start not just of another Government, but of a decade that will bring the change, reform and modernisation that our country needs so badly and for which it has waited so long.
If a generation of progressive change, founded on constitutional and electoral reform, is what the Government intend, the Prime Minister can count on the Liberal Democrats to be critical but firm supporters of every step that he takes along the way. Of course we shall criticise the Government when we believe that they are wrong, and especially when their actions fall short of the programme of reform that the country needs. I have to say that there are some rather worrying examples of that in the programme with which they have presented us today. Our aim, however, will be to provide a constructive opposition, and if that breaks the outmoded convention that Oppositions must always oppose, whatever the merits of the case, we make no apologies for it.
After our most successful election campaign for 60 or 70 years, the Liberal Democrats now come to the House with a clear and powerful mandate. It is a mandate to fight for more investment in education; to ensure that the health service is protected and improved; to argue for practical, effective action to prevent crime; to put the environment at the heart of Government policies--that is one of the deficiencies of the Queen's Speech--to work for
constitutional reform and democratic renewal; and for a rather more rational, more honest and less adversarial style of politics.
If, as the Prime Minister has promised, this is to be a more open and inclusive kind of Government, we shall respond by being a more co-operative and constructive Opposition. If, as the Government imply, they want our politics to be less fussy and less formal, they will find us ready partners in that as well. This place, too, has become far too out of date and far too out of touch for our country's needs. Making the House more open, more approachable and more human is part of the vital task of creating a different culture for our politics as we enter the new century, so that we can start to recover the trust that politics and politicians have so obviously lost over recent years.
I hope that the Queen's Speech will be an historic one, marking not just a change of nameplate on No. 10 but a change of direction for the whole country. I hope that it marks the beginning of a process of reform, not only of our constitution and the culture of our politics but of our society and the education and welfare systems that underpin it, our relations with our neighbours in Europe, our approach to the environment and the way in which we run our economy. In their early days, the Government have made a good start. It is not to diminish the importance of that if one comments that that was the easy bit. The real task begins today with the Queen's Speech.
Britain now faces six key challenges. The first is to re-equip our people with the education and skills that are necessary for individual and national success. The second is to reform our system of government to rebuild trust in our politics and to give people more control over their lives. The third is to renew our sense of common purpose in society, based on self-reliance, shared responsibility and strong and efficient public services. The fourth is to reassess our relationship with the environment in which we live and the fifth is to rebuild Britain's economic strength by putting long-term investment before short-term consumption. The sixth is to rediscover our national self-confidence in our attitudes to Europe and to the wider world.
The Government's programme, presented to us today, begins to address some of those issues. For that reason, we give it now--as I hope that we shall be able to give it on Tuesday--a broad, if cautious, welcome. Indeed, it would be hard not to welcome a Queen's Speech with so many measures that first saw the light of day in Liberal Democrat policy papers. The measures include incorporation of the European convention on human rights--but what do the Government mean by saying, "Just the main provisions"?--the general teaching council for teachers, the independent food standards agency, a statutory right to interest on late payment of debt, independence for the Bank of England--the list goes on. It is said that the Government are enacting their manifesto. It feels more like they are enacting ours. However, other issues, such as the environment, should feature more strongly in the programme, but are ignored either wholly or in part.
There are some issues, notably education, where the intentions are good but, in our view, meaningless, unless they are matched by the resources to make them a reality in the classroom. Even the Government's modest aspirations for cutting school class sizes for children between the ages of five and seven cannot, in our view,
be paid for with the money that has been allocated to them from winding up the assisted places scheme. The sums, we believe, simply do not add up.
Why, incidentally, do we limit ourselves to reducing class sizes to 30 only for children aged between five and seven? The Government have tied their hands by refusing to consider funding education from a rise in income tax. The result is that schools next year will, I greatly fear, continue to be underfunded, teachers will continue to be sacked and children between the ages of seven and 11 will continue to be in class sizes of more than 30 as we come to the end of the century. That is just not good enough for a Government who tell us that education is their No. 1 priority. If they will the ends, they must will the means.
On some other issues, especially on constitutional reform, the judgments and priorities in the Queen's Speech seem--how shall I put it?--at best a little unclear. An example is the second question on the referendum on a Scottish Parliament. If, as the Prime Minister himself famously said, the people of every English parish council have the right to raise taxes, what is the purpose of asking whether the Scottish people should have the right to do the same?
Similarly, the Labour Party agreed before the election, that a fair, proportional electoral system for the 1999 European elections was both--I think I have the right words--their "policy and intention". The timetable for that, if it is to be seriously delivered, will be very tight if it is not done in the coming year. We shall press the Government on their intentions on that and, in particular, on whether they recognise that a fair voting system for the 1999 European elections will require speedy, indeed almost immediate, changes to the work being done by the boundary commission.
I hope, too, that there will be early progress on setting up the commission on electoral reform that has been agreed between our two parties and that was specifically promised in the Labour manifesto. I am pretty confident that that will happen, but it needs to get under way very quickly.
Although we understand the pressure on this year's legislative programme, a White Paper on freedom of information will--I say gently, given Labour's past record on this--be much more convincing as a statement of intent if it is accompanied by a firm timetable for action. It should not be deemed something that we can delay. Whatever their good intentions, the longer newly appointed ministers have to become habituated to the drug of Whitehall secrecy, the harder they will find it to kick the habit. The Government ought to be giving Whitehall a spell of cold turkey to get off that drug. I hope that the delay does not mean that they are getting a touch of cold feet instead.
The lack of clarity is disappointing in a Queen's Speech that, elsewhere, has much to commend it and that contains other sensible and welcome proposals, which we shall support. The right of small businesses to interest on the late payment of debt is long overdue. However, if small businesses are to succeed and grow, there is much more that a Government can do to help them, such as giving them ready access to equity funds.
We welcome an independent food standards agency but, if it is to be genuinely independent, it should be accountable not to Ministers, but to Parliament.
Fast-track treatment for young offenders is fine in principle, but not if it just ends up speeding up an already flawed system.
We are in favour of action to tackle workplace exploitation and poverty wages. However, in order to enhance jobs rather than destroy them, a minimum wage must be sensible and, above all, flexible to reflect regional variations.
We agree that there are savings to be made in NHS bureaucracy, but the Government are kidding themselves if they think that those savings can fund the health service, let alone the improvements that we believe that the British people want from that service.
We welcome, in principle, any programme that helps people off welfare and into work. I must tell the Prime Minister, who put the question to my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), that, in our view, it is just plain wrong to fund that from a one-off, retrospective tax that will, in the long term, inevitably disproportionately hit consumers, shareholders and probably pensioners.
We want to see the profits of the lottery spread more fairly, but core funding for health and education should not be paid for out of the profits of gambling because we have become so frightened of paying for them out of general taxation.
It was obvious to us that interest rates would have to go up after the election, however much the Chancellor and his then shadow denied it. The rise made by the new Chancellor will probably prove too small and may have to be followed by another. However, that depends on how tight a Budget the Chancellor intends to introduce.
We are glad, and think it is wise, that there will be an early Budget. As we said during the general election, heat will have to be taken out of the economy quickly. The fact that that was not done under the previous Government means that we shall now have to take stronger action than would otherwise have been necessary.
We believe that it would be far better for that to be done through taxation, rather than interest rates, which will damage business and push up the pound. Whatever he said to the contrary during the election campaign, I suspect that the new Chancellor believes that too. If we tighten our belts now, we have a real opportunity to get to grips with the huge hangover of debt left behind by the Conservatives.
The tax cuts, unopposed by Labour and given away in last year's Budget, will now have to be restored, just as we said they would, and just as both other parties promised they would not. As a result of the ridiculous, illogical, almost psychotic aversion that has now built up in our politics, the one tax that the Chancellor cannot and will not use is the most efficient, the most progressive and the fairest--income tax. That is ludicrous. For that reason, the Chancellor must hunt around for other means. Speculation today is that he will tax more efficient communications. I see no principled objection to that, but what is the logic for it when more efficient communications are vital to a modern and efficient country and its technology-based economy?
We must get back to a more rational, logical and reasonable debate about tax. The Prime Minister may, uncharacteristically, have misunderstood or not heard one of the election messages--that seemed to be the case in
his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey. I genuinely believe--all the opinion polls show it--that the one policy best known and most widely supported during the election was our proposal for 1p on income tax for education. It is a misjudgment if the Prime Minister and the Labour party do not understand that. If we continue to duck the issue of taxation, we shall never rebuild trust in British politics.
If the Government's tax policies are probably unsupportable, their spending plans on education and health are, at this stage, plainly unsustainable. If that remains unchanged, whatever tinkering the Government may do--or more than tinkering, to be fair--over the next year, our schools and hospitals will sink deeper into crisis. We said that when the spending plans were proposed by the last Government in their Budget and we said it throughout the election. Sooner or later, we believe that the Government will be saying it too. It is a problem that the Government cannot duck, and it will come at them very soon and very fast.
Liberal Democrats have come to the House doubled in numbers and with a clear mandate to fight for increased investment in education, for more resources for the health service, for a new recognition of the importance of the environment and for political reform and the modernisation of our institutions in Britain. We shall use that new strength to fight for the policies that we believe Britain needs. We believe that we share with the Government the mandate for change for which the British people voted 13 days ago. That means changing not just what the Government do and how they do it, but what the Opposition do as well. Where the Government are wrong, we shall oppose them strenuously, but where we believe that they are right, we shall support and assist them.
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