Mike Penning
Main Page: Mike Penning (Conservative - Hemel Hempstead)Department Debates - View all Mike Penning's debates with the Cabinet Office
(11 years ago)
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Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman is completely and utterly wrong, and I look forward to the letter of apology that he will doubtless send to me later this afternoon. We introduced good legislation, and then even improved it. It is the current Government who are trying to dismantle it.
To be honest, this Queen’s Speech is not fit for a monarch. It is not fit for a princeling or a hireling; it is fit only for a changeling Government—a Government who are pretending to do politics and are not really interested in what voters in my constituency are interested in. We have an empty speech, a vacuum surrounding a lacuna enveloping a void consisting of nothing but dark matter—that is all this Queen’s Speech is. Why? Because we have a coalition. I am not intrinsically opposed to coalitions. If the voters do not deliver a clear outcome, we sometimes have to have a coalition Government. The truth of the matter, however, is that this coalition has run its course, and Ministers know that it has run its course. They know that the Government are running into the buffers. It is not that one party or the other has run out of ideas; I am sure that they are both crammed full of ideas. The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, looks as if he is absolutely packed full of ideas—ideas about Northern Ireland, maybe, but none the less he is clearly packed full of them.
Chris Bryant
No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, because he is the Minister. I am sure that he is packed full of ideas, but the point is that they are not in the Queen’s Speech.
The truth is that what will happen in the coming year is what has happened throughout the last year. The House will not be sitting regularly. We shall have long recesses and long adjournments. The Government will make sure that there is not much legislation on the books, so that they can course their way through.
One Bill that I really wish had been included in the Queen’s Speech is a new fixed-term Parliaments Bill setting a term of four rather than five years. I think that the Government will rue the day on which they introduced a five-year fixed-term Parliament. People in this country will start to say “We are absolutely sick and tired of legislation that does not make sense, and of the Government’s not addressing the issues that we really care about.” There is a verse in the Book of Revelation that I think sums up the Queen’s Speech perfectly: “Would that you were hot or cold, but you are tepid, lukewarm, and I spit you out of my mouth.”