Debate on the Address

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, hinted, there is a strange aura about this gracious Speech. We knew that the programme set out in the previous one would run for some 18 months. In contrast, no one knows what period this programme will cover. We are all waiting for Gordon, who, as one newspaper reliably informed us, is hoarding initiatives until the Prime Minister is safely on the US lecture tour, to which the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, referred. Mr Steve Richards, writing in this week’s House Magazine, asked whether this gracious Speech is part of the longest obituary in history. If so, the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, the intellectual godfather of new Labour, is an appropriate choice to deliver the funeral oration on the Blair era. History will judge whether he provided intellectual rigour for a genuine third way or a convenient fig leaf for a neo-Thatcherite agenda. What is certain is that today, as always, he delivered a speech of real quality and substance with mesmerising fluency. My praise for the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, comes even more easily. I agreed with much of her speech, and that is not surprising because we have so much in common. We both went to University College, London; we are both fellows of that college; we both held office in the students’ union; and we both had a close involvement in Shelter. I shall not take the parallels any further because I suspect that the call to the Front Bench is not too far away, and an endorsement from me does not carry the weight it should with the Government. Before I turn to the gracious Speech, I have to announce that I will absent for some weeks during this Session to have my knees replaced. I am assured by no less an authority than the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, that after the operation I shall be skipping around like a spring lamb, and I have assured the noble Lord, Lord Warner, that I shall return as an expert on NHS cuisine. In the mean time, I am fortunate to have not one but two deputies: my noble friends Lord Dholakia and Lord Wallace of Saltaire. Not since Octavius and Mark Antony were left in charge of Rome has an organisation been in safer hands. For Ministers, there must be a feeling of ““Waiting for Godot””. Beckett wrote: "““Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful!””." There has been one departure: the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, has left the Government Front Bench. I pay tribute to his outstanding service as Science Minister.