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Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough): The Government are of course entitled to change policy on GCHQ if that is their wish and if the change is contained in their manifesto. I am sure that it was a slip of the tongue, but the Leader of the House seemed to imply, in reply to an earlier question, that because the matter was contained in the Labour party's manifesto, there was no need for a statement on it. It would be a dangerous precedent to set if we were not to be entitled to debate matters or have a statement on them simply because they were in a party manifesto. I am sure that the right hon. Lady would want to correct that point.
Mrs. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman is gracious to say that we are entitled to change policy on GCHQ. Yes, we are--and we have. There is no need for a statement. The debate on the Queen's Speech is wide ranging, and if hon. Members want to raise the issue, they are entitled to do so.
Points of Order
3.37 pm
Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Having had the opportunity of reading your statement in the Official Report, I am submitting a memorandum to you on the possible desirability of referring the matter to the Standards and Privileges Committee and I should be grateful if you would consider it and perhaps make a statement at an appropriate moment.
Madam Speaker: I shall certainly look at it when it comes into my Office.
Sir Peter Emery (East Devon): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am sorry to say that I consider the answer from the Leader of the House to the question about Prime Minister's questions to be entirely inadequate. I shall raise the matter in an Adjournment debate at the earliest possible opportunity.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood (Roxburgh and Berwickshire): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Following the exchanges in business questions this afternoon, I am greatly concerned that there appears to have been some tutoring of the official Opposition as to what question to ask the Leader of the House. The right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Dr. Mawhinney) has clearly been handing round questions because Opposition Members obviously do not have the wit to think of any of their own. I have a serious question for you, Madam Speaker. If hon. Members ask questions of a repetitive nature, surely you have the authority to hold them to account and stop them from doing so. I hope that you will consider doing that in future.
Madam Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is quite correct. At times this afternoon, questions became tedious and repetitive, and I have a shrewd idea about what was going on. I am rather tolerant, and it was the first time that the Leader of the House had been at the Dispatch Box, so I thought I would give her a good innings, but I shall watch the matter in future.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. May I ask you to reflect on the manner in which hon. Members take the oath and the fact that, while we respect republican sentiments among Labour Members, it is possible that the manner in which hon. Members take the oath could bring the House into disrepute? May I ask you to make a statement on the subject?
Madam Speaker: I do not think that a statement is necessary. It may be some years before many hon. Members have to take the oath again, but when new Members come in at a by-election, I shall bear in mind what the hon. Member has said and what I know is the feeling of the House. I shall watch hon. Members very carefully on taking the oath, the hon. Gentleman can be assured of that.
BILL PRESENTEDReferendums (Scotland and Wales)
The Prime Minister, supported by Mr. Secretary Prescott, Mr. Secretary Dewar, Mr. Secretary Davies, Mr. Secretary Straw, Mrs. Ann Taylor and Mr. Henry McLeish, presented a Bill to make provision for the holding of a referendum in Scotland on the establishment and tax-varying powers of a Scottish Parliament and a referendum in Wales on the establishment of a Welsh Assembly; and for expenditure in preparation for the establishment of a Scottish Parliament or a Welsh Assembly: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed [Bill 1].
Orders of the Day
Debate on the Address
[Second Day]
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question, [14 May]
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:--
Question again proposed.
Most Gracious Sovereign,
We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament--[Mr. Kaufman.]
Work, Welfare, Education and Health
3.39 pm
The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. David Blunkett): Madam Speaker, in opening today's debate on the Queen's Speech, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on what I think you described as a very good innings indeed. I also wish to indicate that, in the spirit of the Jopling Committee recommendations, I shall keep my speech brief--not least so as to ensure that many of the new Members can make their maiden speeches today.
I have the privilege of being the first Labour Secretary of State for Education and Employment; the first Labour Secretary of State for the past 18 years to stand at this Dispatch Box; and the first shadow Secretary of State for Education since 1929 to make it to the Secretary of State's job. I owe that gem of information to Roy, now Lord, Hattersley and I pay tribute this afternoon to a lifetime's commitment to the education service and to the love of his life.
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover):
That was in The Guardian.
Mr. Blunkett:
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) says that it was in The Guardian. I had better check that, but I checked it with Lord Hattersley and it is bound to be true.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has placed a particular burden on my shoulders--not the burden of delivering some of the most essential and key pledges of the new Labour Government, but rather that, in a pre-election party political broadcast, my right hon. Friend warned all of the nation's children that I was about to inflict on them a great deal more homework. Children have been coming up to me ever since asking whether that was a threat and what the extent of the homework would be.
I do not mind being the bogeyman on the Government Benches, as long as I do not have to come across in the night the bogeymen of the Opposition--not least the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). I do not know whether the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) counts himself as a bogeyman--he was certainly wise enough to
move from St. Albans. I do not know whether he is here this afternoon, but I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard) on achieving that tremendous victory. This is the first time I can remember that anybody standing for the leadership of a political party has appealed to his supporters to stop campaigning for him, on the ground that what they have said about opponents might be embarrassing. That shows the measure of the disarray on the Opposition Benches.
At last, we have the opportunity of turning words into action and of starting the process of making a difference to the lives of millions of people across this country. We are able to offer a new beginning--a partnership and a consensus within the British nation so that the crusade for standards, the drive for opportunity in work and the chance to be able to earn their own living will at last be a reality for so many people who have waited these long 18 years for a change of Government.
We have a chance to give young and old alike some hope for the future. We have the opportunity to offer young people the sort of standards that others have taken for granted. We have the ability to give young and old alike the chance to work when, for so long, they have been dependent on others--to translate dependency into independence and to translate welfare into work. [Interruption.] The grumblings of Opposition Members should be mirrored by the reality of the tripling of the number of people over the past 18 years who were made dependent on state benefits--that is a tribute not to independence but to extending the tentacles of the state in a way that Margaret Thatcher could not, presumably, have envisaged when she made her speech on the steps of Downing street in May 1979.
This time, the pledges are clear; we will deliver on them over the next five years and rebuild trust in politics and democracy and the ability of the Government to work with the people in delivering those pledges.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex):
Which of the right hon. Gentleman's ministerial colleagues would he congratulate on the latest fall in the unemployment figures?
Mr. Blunkett:
I would give considerable credit to many of my right hon. and hon. Friends for bringing about a new state of unemployment among former colleagues of Opposition Members--that is the only level of unemployment that we are prepared to tolerate over the next five years.
I am proud of the Government's education and employment team and, working with the people, we will do the job--but the Government do not believe that we can do it alone. We shall be working with those in education--parents, governors, teachers and heads--and with those in the Employment Service, in our jobcentres and in the community who have long awaited an enabling Government who will provide the resources of the state to enable people to determine their own lives and to be given the opportunity and the wherewithal to flourish in a complicated world of new technology and a knowledge-based society in which human capital has replaced the 19th-century investment of fixed capital.
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