I welcome the Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy to his place and look forward to hearing what he has to say, but it is extraordinary that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport could not be bothered to turn up to wind up his part of the debate on the Gracious Speech at the very beginning of this new parliamentary Session. What a dereliction of duty. Who knows whether he is otherwise engaged—no doubt on the vote leave battle bus—or whether the Prime Minister simply does not trust him enough to let him out of the Cabinet dog house to which he has no doubt been confined on the shortest of leashes because of his support for the leave campaign.
We have had a broad-ranging and excellent debate. We have heard from 31 Back-Bench colleagues, one of whom, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss), made an excellent and well received maiden speech. It showed quite clearly what a great MP she is going to be, rooted as she is in the community that she now represents. Sad though the circumstances are that have brought her to this place, it is quite clear from her remarks that she will do an excellent job.
This was the Queen’s Speech that was not supposed to happen ahead of the EU referendum, and it showed. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) said, we were told in
Government briefings in March that the Queen’s Speech was to be postponed until after the EU referendum, but the Prime Minister then changed his mind. Perhaps that explains the ill thought out programme, with a small number of Bills, many of which seek to do things that everyone agrees with, being cobbled together to give an impression that all is well with this relatively newly elected Government—except that it is not.
We can see clearly that the Prime Minister is not focused on this legislative programme because he is otherwise engaged. It is no wonder, given that his fractious, warring Cabinet members seem to have lost all mutual respect, denouncing each other in language more suited to bitter political enemies. I will give two examples. The erstwhile Welfare Secretary thinks that the Chancellor tells fibs—he has said today that Pinocchio,
“with his nose just getting longer and longer and longer”,
is
“very similar to the Chancellor. With every fib you tell, it gets longer. Who am I to judge how many there have been?”
Meanwhile, the Employment Minister has accused the Prime Minister of “concocting Armageddon scenarios”, calling some of his claims about what will happen if we leave the EU “fantastical”, “hysterical” and “incredible”. It was clear from the context that she did not mean it in a positive sense.
We have heard an echo of those debates on the Government Back Benches today, with the right hon. Members for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) and for Wokingham (John Redwood) being opposed by the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) on EU issues. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) called it a Tory “Game of Thrones”, and the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) even went so far as to offer parallels with individual characters from that drama. It makes for an interesting spectacle, but not for good governance or an ambitious legislative programme.