Debate on the Address

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

No, I have given way enough.

As this Government start the job of building our country’s future, the Labour party is clearly thinking about its own future. As experts in leadership elections, we shall be watching with interest. I have to say, however, that if Labour thinks that having a leadership election is the answer to its problems, it is wrong. The truth is that it is not the leader that is the problem; it is Labour. The whole approach has been wrong—the idea that for every problem there is a bottomless pit of public money, that for every situation there is a Government solution and for every issue there is a Whitehall initiative. It ended up giving us an economy that is nearly bankrupt, a society that is broken and a political system that is bust. That is why this coalition has come together—because this country needs strong, stable government to sort out the mess that the Labour Government made. They gave us big spending; we will bring good housekeeping. They trusted in bureaucracy, we will trust in community. They governed in the party interest; we will govern in the national interest.

This Queen’s Speech marks an end to the years of recklessness and big government and the beginning of the years of responsibility and good government. It takes the deficit head-on; it shows the world that Britain is reopening for business; it tackles the causes of our social problems; it means better schools for our children, real hope for those out of work and a stronger NHS for everyone; and its means having a Parliament that belongs to the people, not the politicians. It means a new start for Britain, and I commend it to the House.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You said earlier that for the sake of accuracy you had managed to obtain a copy of the Queen’s Speech. You need not have done any such thing, as you might just as well have bought a copy of The Sunday Telegraph. Will you confirm that this is the first time that a draft of the Queen’s Speech has ever been leaked to a national newspaper? Will you personally conduct an investigation to find out whether it was leaked from No. 10 Downing street and whether any money changed hands in connection with it? You rightly used to excoriate Labour Ministers if ever we made announcements before making them to this House, so will you make sure that that lot over there do not announce things to the press—as they have done, day in, day out over the past 10 days—without first bringing them before this House?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, which warrants an immediate response. The House will share the hon. Gentleman’s disappointment that it and he did not hear for the first time the details of the Government’s legislative programme while listening to the Queen’s Speech this morning. This gives me the opportunity to say at the start of this new Parliament that I shall continue to expect, as I said two days after first being elected Speaker last June, that

“Ministers ought to make key statements to the House before they are made elsewhere.”—[Official Report, 24 June 2010; Vol. 494, c. 798.]

If they do otherwise, I—and, I am sure, the House—will expect to hear explanations and apologies as necessary.