20:41 BREAKING NEWS : The Sunday Telegraph have just a leaked a draft of the upcoming Queen's Speech. It reveals that the new Coalition Government will spell out an programme of at least 21 Bills to be introduced in the next 18 months and within days, the Government intends to bring in school reforms and scrap plans for ID cards.The speech has “freedom, fairness and responsibility” as its main themes and contains many key policies demanded by the Lib Dems as the price for their entry into the coalition government.
The Queen will stress in her speech, the first priority will be to ?“reduce the deficit and restore economic growth".
There will be a Pensions and Savings Bill to restore the link between earnings and the basic state pension.
A Welfare Reform Bill will ?outline plans to strip claimants who refuse work of their benefits. And those on Incapacity Benefits will be checked to see if they can work – and is deemed fit will be moved on to the lower ?Jobseekers’ Allowance.
It certainly is a packed legislative programme, most of it is naively scrapping the previous government's anti-terror and anti-crime safeguards.
I suspect the Queen speech will be upstaged more by Monday's announcement by George Osborne of the upcoming £6 billion cuts in the Public Sector. Reports say most of it will be cuts in the Business Department now headed by Vince Cable. This is just economic stupidity, Lord Mandelson was using that £700 million to invest in advance manufacturing to create jobs in this country, Monday's announcement is a cuts package to jobs in the UK, not harmless efficiency savings.
