Debate on the Address

No. With respect, I know that other hon. Members want to speak. I am not sure that the Government have got it. They have an unrivalled opportunity on climate change. There is now overwhelming cross-party support for new legislation to cut UK carbon dioxide emissions by at least 3 per cent. every year. We have to hope that Ministers will seize the opportunity presented by this consensus and will make the UK a world example in developing a low carbon economy. Apart from the Iraq war, the other defining characteristic of the Government has been repressive legislation. I suspect that future students of the Blair Government will see the Iraq war and repressive legislation as their hallmarks. The Government have introduced no fewer than 23 Bills on criminal justice; again, they simply do not get it. People are fed up with the Home Secretary talking tough but changing nothing. My constituents want real police officers doing real policing, and they want the police to have the numbers and resources to respond effectively. However, one slightly loses the will to live when there is a Home Secretary who trumpets in today’s newspaper that he wants"““to move away from the traditional view that justice has to involve going to court.””" What has happened to the Government’s, and the Labour party’s, belief in civil liberties? They want to privatise the Probation Service and give the police even wider powers without the scrutiny of the courts. Let us have less tough talk on crime and more straightforward policing in which our communities have confidence. On identity cards, I simply do not understand the situation. We will have biometric passports; if one wants to prove one’s identity, one can simply produce a biometric passport. So what is the point of having an ID card, unless carrying it is going to be compulsory? To put that another way, will it be a criminal offence not to carry one’s ID card? Otherwise, what is the point of having an ID card? On the issue of 28 days’ detention, the Prime Minister and Treasury Front-Bench Members have simply not replied to the questions put by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) and other Members throughout today’s debate. Where is the evidence that 28 days’ detention is not working? Where is the evidence that Ministers need it to be possible for people to be detained longer for questioning? Why is the Labour party suddenly wishing to be so cavalier with our civil liberties in this country? Of course, I welcome a number of things in the Queen’s Speech. Let me mention the White Paper paving the way for the abolition of the Child Support Agency, which has been a complete nightmare. There are about 30,000 unresolved cases. Any formula-based system is always going to lead to problems. One of the problems with the CSA is that there has been no means of resolving by adjudication disputes that arise on fact. All Members have got interminable CSA cases in their constituency caseload, but most of them revolve around disputes about fact. There needs to be some mechanism to resolve those disputes. I welcome the reform of the CSA. I also welcome the overhaul of the pension system. I hope that particular attention will be given to women pensioners, and I think that everyone welcomes the determination to restore the link between pensions and earnings. Some Bills are noticeably missing, such as the much-vaunted marine protection Bill. As a former fisheries Minister—which is slightly bizarre, as I represent one of the most inland constituencies in the country—I am disappointed that the Government have abandoned the Bill on marine preservation. That demonstrates their somewhat half-hearted approach to green issues. When a proposal does not look particularly sexy, they simply abandon it. The truth is that the Queen’s Speech demonstrates that the Prime Minister has stayed in office for too long. It is not a Queen’s Speech that amounts to a legacy. The Prime Minister’s era is over, and yet he presses for a few more miserable months. In the meantime, the rest of us are left simply waiting for Gordon.