| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
3.51 pm
The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): I am deeply honoured to speak to the first Queen's Speech for more than 18 years to be put to Parliament and the British people by a new Labour Government.
I join the Leader of the Opposition in paying respect to Sir Michael Shersby, Barry Porter, Iain Mills and, of course, Martin Redmond, all of whom we in the House remember with very great affection.
I also pay tribute to the witty and excellent speeches made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). My right hon. Friend is renowned throughout the House for his wit. Indeed, I recall one of the first shadow Cabinet meetings that I attended under a previous leader, when the leader explained that a shadow Minister was absent because he had just had an operation on his throat and was able to speak out of only one side of his mouth. My right hon. Friend interjected, "So it was not wholly successful then." I will not describe the shadow Minister.
There are two copies of the great tome, "How to be a Minister", in the House of Commons Library--I have the other here. I think that one of the most interesting things about it is the eulogy printed on its cover, which says:
The wit of my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton is well known, but he has another side, which you, Madam Speaker, and I, know as well. When I first came into the House in 1983, he was a model of encouragement, support and friendship to me and to many younger Members of Parliament. I salute him for being not only a great wit and parliamentarian, but a good and loyal friend.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South, in an excellent speech, mentioned, like the Leader of the Opposition--I have to keep remembering to get that right--"A Very British Coup". I like to think that we have performed something of our own very British coup with 419 Members of Parliament.
One of the things that the Leader of the Opposition said that I particularly want to echo is that my hon. Friend has not merely given sterling service in the House, but is acknowledged throughout the country and on both sides of the House as someone of independent reason and integrity. He fought causes that were deeply unpopular, was often excoriated for doing so, but persisted none the less, and, thanks to him, people who should never have been in prison are free today.
The Leader of the Opposition spoke with considerable dignity and, again, I pay tribute to him for that. However, at times he was refighting the election campaign somewhat. I cannot, of course, agree with his judgment on the last five years of Conservative government, and neither did the British people. They know that their schools and hospitals, and the safety on their streets--the state of Britain--are not as good as they should be after 18 years of Conservative government.
We had the usual ritual scares about what a Labour Government would do and how terrible that would be for the country, but those scares just do not work any more. People know them to be false and they rejected them at the election. If Conservative Members have learnt no lessons from their election defeat, they had better prepare themselves for the next one.
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough):
Will the Prime Minister give way?
The Prime Minister:
It is always a pleasure to give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Leigh:
The right hon. Gentleman mentions the general election campaign. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the decision, why did not he share with the British people his intention, four days after winning the general election, to abolish democratic control over the cost of borrowing?
The Prime Minister:
If the hon. Gentleman had read the Labour party's manifesto with sufficient care, he would have seen quite plainly set out that we want to move to a more independent form of political decision making. I shall come to that point specifically a little later.
There are two simple reasons for my party's historic victory in the election. The first is the Conservative party and the second is the Labour party. The Conservative Government lost touch with the instincts and aspirations of the British people; they broke their election promises; they were more interested in fighting among themselves than fighting for the interests of the country; but most of all they settled for second best for a great country whose people know that it can do better than the Conservative Government did.
I believe that our victory was testament to something else--the huge changes in the Labour party. Just as the Conservatives were changing for the worse, my party was changing for the better. The election was a vote of confidence in today's Labour party. People's worries about health, education, jobs and crime are what we are pledged to put right, and they are at the heart of the Queen's Speech.
We speak as the one nation party in British politics today. Anyone who doubts that needs only look around the House today. They will see Labour Members of Parliament from every part of the country; every region, every nation. We speak for the whole nation and we shall serve the whole nation. The Queen's Speech represents the alliance of progress and justice too long absent from British politics under Conservative government.
Our mandate is clear--to modernise what is out-dated, to make fair what is unjust, and to do both by the best means available, irrespective of dogma or doctrine, without fear or favour. There is much to do.
The Leader of the Opposition asked, in effect, what was wrong with Britain after 18 years of Conservative government. It was as if he could barely believe that the people had been so unreasonable as to put him out after all the good service that his Government had given. I will tell him what is wrong with the country today, and what we can do to put it right. I say that it is a betrayal of our future that in Britain, in 1997, almost half of our 11-year-olds cannot read or add up properly. In this
Queen's Speech, we start to put that right. [Hon. Members: "Labour councils."] Even now, Conservative Members will not take responsibility for the situation that they have created.
I say that our national health service cannot and should not be run like some supermarket, as it was under the Conservatives, but should be run as a proper public service. I say that it is intolerable that many of our elderly citizens live in fear of persistent juvenile offenders running riot. In this Queen's Speech, we take the action to put a stop to it.
I say that it is an offence to the politics of one nation that we have a large number of young people idle, leading wasted lives, on benefit, with no hope of getting off benefit. In this Queen's Speech, we start to put that right.
I say that it is wrong that small business men and women wait in vain for their debts to be paid by bigger firms that can afford to pay them. Again, in this Queen's Speech, we put the power in their hands to right the wrongs done to them.
I say that it is humiliating that this country of ours, which has held the balance of power in Europe, and often beyond, for centuries, should have been confined to the margins of influence where the last Government dragged us. We will put leadership in place of isolationism.
I also say that a Britain that is young of mind and confident of its future must change a situation in which unelected quangos spend more money than elected local government, and where foreign donors can bankroll parties of government. In this Queen's Speech, we will clean up politics and restore faith in our public life.
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey):
Will the Prime Minister give way?
The Prime Minister:
In a moment.
There was a lot of talk during the election campaign that there would be no difference between the parties. I think that, in 12 short days, that has been exposed as the nonsense that it always was. There will be one other difference. This Government will keep their promises. [Interruption.] Conservative Members find that an extraordinary proposition. They are startled that anyone should say such a thing. On education, on health, on jobs, on crime and on the economy, the people's priorities are our priorities and the people's concerns are our concerns; radical, modern and very definitely new Labour.
We said that education should be our No. 1 priority, and it is. Education is the key both to the extension of personal opportunity and choice and to the nation's future prosperity. Today we will earn by what we learn. There is much to do--in the standards in our schools and in the skills of our work force. The measures that we will introduce in this Session of Parliament will begin the task of overcoming that education deficit.
First, we will phase out the assisted places scheme, which provides subsidy to fewer than 40,000 children in private schools, and use the money to cut class sizes to 30 or under for all five, six and seven-year-olds.
"This is the one book I recommend to all my colleagues upon first taking office. It remains the best guide."
Underneath is written:
"The right hon. Kenneth Clarke".
Now we know what went wrong under the previous Administration. If those are the precepts that the previous Government followed, I may have to forbid its being read by Ministers. [Hon. Members: "Oh."] It is always as well to start as one means to go on.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |