Treasury and Work and Pensions

I must make progress. The one group of people who do not seem to have a policy on which they are prepared to pronounce are the Front Benchers of the Conservative party. They have been absolutely silent while all the party’s different policies have been exposed. The main theme of the Queen’s Speech is the intention to build on the economic platform that we have created of stability and growth, and to look forward to the central challenges that we must meet as a nation. As a result of the Queen’s Speech, we will publish legislation on statistics, further education reform, welfare reform, and pensions—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will talk about that in detail later—and there will be a financial services Bill, too. In addition, today we are publishing our document on long-term challenges facing the British economy. What was remarkable about the shadow Chancellor’s speech was that none of those long-term challenges was addressed. We will face the global terrorist challenge by enhancing security. We have doubled the security budget from £1 billion to £2 billion. [Interruption.] I am happy to give way, if any hon. Member can point out that that is not the case. Let us have no more talk about the Home Office budget. The security budget is doubling, and the Home Office budget is rising this year, next year, and the year after that, because we intend to meet our commitments to security. The second challenge is how to meet the demands of global economic restructuring. We must do so by entrenching our stability. That is why the statistics Bill will continue the process that we started with the Bank of England and the competition authorities, and continued with industrial policy—the process of making policy independent of Government. We will out-innovate our competitors if we pursue the science, technology and skills strategy that we are putting forward. We must meet the environmental challenge by taking action on climate change, hence the climate change Bill that we will discuss in the House. However, we must balance what we can do nationally and what we can do internationally. I should tell Opposition Members that the environmental challenge will require a degree of European co-operation, and that is no part of their policy at the moment. If we are to meet the challenges of the future, we must respond to rising individual aspirations and to the yearning in our communities for greater cohesion.