Queen’s Speech : The Election Campaign Begins

Posted on: 19 November 2009

The Queen’s Speech is always a rather rum affair. The full panoply of what many regard as a Ruritanian-style monarchy is put on show as backdrop to what is necessarily the dullest speech anyone could make. Although it is written by highly political prime ministers, it is read by a monarch who has to appear above it all. The tension comes out in the turgid prose.

Queen’s speeches delivered at the beginning of a parliament at least have the merit of telling us what a government that’s just won an election intends to do with its power. But a Queen’s speech in the dying months of a parliament seems especially forlorn as everyone’s attention is on something else: the coming election and who is going to win it.

So this week’s speech was never going to set the world alight. Indeed Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, went so far as to say it should have been abandoned altogether. With only around seventy days left to enact any proposed new laws, he said, there was no point in announcing bills that would never become law. Instead the dying parliament should concentrate on the one issue it could sort out before it was dissolved next spring – the issue of MPs’ and peers’ expenses and the terms of their employment.

The fact that the Queen’s Speech had nothing to say about this matter became itself the cause of controversy. David Cameron, the Tory leader, said it was ‘big omission’. And Sir Christopher Kelly, who chaired the inquiry into MPs’ allowances, said he was ‘disappointed’.The government defended itself by saying that it had already enacted all the legislation that was needed by setting up the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority which will take control of many of the issues involved out of the hands of MPs themselves. But Sir Christopher believes the IPSA does not yet have sufficient powers to do its job, especially in relation to MPs’ pay and pensions and to its ability to investigate and enforce.

Harriet Harman, the leader of the House of Commons, subsequently said that ‘the things he wants done will be done’, so perhaps further legislation on the issue will be forthcoming even though it was not mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. The suspicion remains, however, that the government faces opposition to some of Kelly’s proposals among its own backbenchers (as well as those of other parties). So it is likely that this will continue to be an issue on which the party leaders will try and score points off each other. The election campaign has certainly begun.

But aside from the expenses issue, the main charge against Gordon Brown for the Queen’s speech he wrote was that it was all about politics and little about government. In particular he was accused of using the speech to draw dividing lines between Labour and Tories in the hope that the Conservatives would fall into the trap of opposing policies that are likely to be popular.

The proposal to offer free care at home for around 400,000 elderly people was cited as an example. It is unlikely to become law, they say, but allows the Prime Minister to blame the Tories for the failure if they oppose it.

Government supporters, however, say that the opposition parties are being just as political by accusing the government of playing politics by proposing bills that are unlikely to become law. After all, they argue, it is not the government’s fault that there are only six months of this parliament left to run. It is perfectly reasonable, they claim, for a government to set out what it wants to do even if it knows that an election will intervene before it can do it: if the government wins, it can fulfil its plans in the next parliament.

But beyond all this political skirmishing there are perhaps some more substantial points to be raised about this week’s Queen’s Speech. The first is about the very function of legislation. Critics have drawn attention to proposed laws that enshrine in law an goal or confer a right with no apparent accompanying means of enforcing them.

Several examples have been cited. A new bill concerning fiscal responsibility attempts to provide  ‘a firm and binding statutory basis’ to halve the government’s budget deficit in four years. The criticism is that just passing a law doesn’t make things happen. The Financial Times said: ‘This is like someone who thinks that registering for the gym is the same as actually taking exercise’.

The same charge is made against the proposed new law to eradicate child poverty by 2020. And similarly the new law to give parents the entitlement to high quality education for their children lacks, it’s argued, any obvious mechanism to bring it about.

Opposition critics say the government has had twelve years to do what’s necessary actually to achieve such desirable goals but has failed and now is supposing they can be reached just by passing a law. But the laws will be unenforceable, they claim. Only by taking schools to court would parents be able to realise their new entitlement; and as for the laws on child poverty and the deficit, if governments themselves fail to fulfil them there will be no sanction. All that will happen is that law itself will fall into disrepute.

There is also a wider issue about the importance of law. Much of what government necessarily does has nothing to do with making new laws. Deciding what wars to fight or what levels of taxing and spending the government should engage in are executive issues that often don’t require legislation. Yet governments of all parties, it’s argued, have an itch to pass new laws in order to be seen to be ‘doing something’. As a result, there is a huge increase in the number of laws and the reach of the state but little accompanying increase in the wellbeing of the country.

Some wags have suggested that only one new law is really needed: a law that forces governments to repeal an old law every time they want to introduce a new one. Perhaps the parties will be arguing about that at the next election. But I wouldn’t bank on it.

What’s your view? Do you think this week’s Queen’s Speech was worthwhile or not? Do you agree or not with Nick Clegg that it should have been abandoned in favour of parliament focussing solely on the issue of cleaning itself up? Do you think the absence of any new legislation on this was a ‘big omission’, or do you think the government has already done enough? Do you accept or not Harriet Harman’s assurance that the additional measures Sir Christopher Kelly may want will be provided, or do you think MPs are foot-dragging on reforming themselves? What do you make of the charge that the contents of the Queen’s Speech showed that Gordon Brown was more keen on playing politics than providing good government? Do you think legislation that attempts to enshrine goals and rights in law, such as the proposed bills on cutting the deficit, ending child poverty and providing the right to high quality education, are worthwhile or not? And what do you make of the claim that we have far too much law?

Let us know your views.