Speaking in today’s Assembly debate on the contents of the Queen’s Speech, Welsh Conservative Assembly leader Nick Bourne AM said:
“The Queen’s Speech addresses the problems facing Britain today.
“It aims to build a strong economy, reform our public services and our politics, encourage individual and social responsibility and restore our freedoms and our civil liberties.
“It is a programme is driven by the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility with the aim of delivering a stronger society, a smaller state and placing power and responsibility in the hands of every citizen.”
Nick Bourne AM’s speech in full
“Mr Llywydd. It gives me great pleasure to speak this afternoon on the United Kingdom Government’s legislative programme.
This programme is driven by the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility with the aim of delivering a stronger society, a smaller state and placing power and responsibility in the hands of every citizen.
The main priorities of the Queen’s Speech are:
To reduce the deficit and restore economic growth.
To build a strong and fair society by reforming public services and encourage individual and social responsibility.
To restore freedoms and civil liberties.
And to reform Parliament and politics to restore trust in democratic institutions and rebalance the relationship between the citizen and the state.
I shall deal with each point in turn.
First, the deficit and economic growth.
Last week in this Chamber, we debated the truly awful economic legacy bequeathed by the last Labour Government.
A legacy that left Britain with the deepest recession on record, a national debt more than doubled and the largest deficit in the European Union, even larger than Greece.
Britain is at a turning point.
For many years we have been heading in the wrong direction with the economy more and more unbalanced, with our fortunes hitched to a few industries in one corner of our country, while we let other sectors like manufacturing slide.
It has become over-reliant on welfare, increasingly hostile to enterprise and far too dependent on the public sector.
We have to rebalance economic power and end the inevitability of millions on long-term welfare and bring hope to those unemployed.
We can inject new life into the public sector and move from an economy built on debt and borrowing to one built on saving and investment.
The Office for Budgetary Responsibility Bill will provide statutory underpinning for the Office of Budgetary Responsibility.
This new independent fiscal watchdog, under the Chairmanship of Sir Alan Budd, has already started work by downgrading Labour’s economic growth projections for 2011 from 3.25 per cent to 2.6 per cent.
The independence of the Office’s judgements will ensure that policy is unbiased, improving confidence in the fiscal forecasts.
The UK will be one of the few advanced economies with an independent fiscal agency producing the official fiscal and economic forecasts.
The Financial Reform Bill will reform financial regulation to restore the Bank of England’s position in controlling matters such as credit, liquidity and control over financial institutions.
The Government will create a fairer tax system that helps those on lower and middle incomes.
Next week’s Budget will announce a significant increase in the personal allowance for income tax, with a longer-term objective to increase the personal allowance to £10,000.
This will greatly benefit Wales which has 42 per cent of the working age population in the £10,000 and lower income tax bands.
The earnings link for the basic state pension will be restored from April 2011.
This is excellent news for older people in Wales which, coupled with the pledge to protect key benefits such as the winter fuel payment, free bus passes and TV licences demonstrates the Government’s commitment to older people.
To build a strong and fair society we need to encourage individual and social responsibility by tackling welfare reform.
The coalition Government will also tackle the UK’s high level of worklessness through radical welfare reform.
The Welfare Reform Bill will make the benefits system less complex and improve the incentives to work.
Many people find the benefits system confusing and complex making them afraid to make any change to their circumstances and creating a barrier to moving from benefits to work.
By making the system less complex people will see a gain when entering work, reduce the scope for fraud and get the five million plus people languishing on benefits into work and out of poverty.
Unemployment in Wales is the highest of any nation in the UK.
At present, many people find it is not worth going from the dole into work if the job pays £15,000 or less.
The Work Programme will help many people return to work and to achieve their full potential.
Mr Llywydd, the coalition Government will roll back the power of the state which has increased under years of Labour Government.
The Freedom (Great Repeal) Bill will reduce the weight of government imposition on citizens that has increased through legislation and centralised programmes.
The Bill will introduce new legislation to restrict the scope of the DNA database and give added protection to innocent people whose samples have been stored.
Privacy will be protected by legislation to regulate the use of CCTV and the storage of internet and email records to ensure there is a good reason for doing so.
The right to non-violent protest will be restored and anti-terrorism legislation will ensure the right balance is struck between protecting the public, strengthening social cohesion and protecting civil liberties.
And an ID Cards Bill will scrap Labour’s unnecessary ID Cards, scrap the National Identity Register and require the destruction of all personal information gathered from cardholders.
This will save the taxpayer around £86 million over the next four years once all cancellation costs are taken into account.
It will also avoid more than £800 million of ongoing costs over the next ten years which were to be recovered through fees.
Labour created 4,300 new offences during its time in office—equivalent to “a new crime every day”.
The Conservative/ Liberal Democrat coalition will reverse endless Government interference in our daily lives, and uphold cherished British freedoms and civil liberties.
Mr Llywydd, reforming Parliament and politics to restore trust in our democratic institutions is vital following the MPs expenses scandal.
The Parliamentary Reform Bill will provide for a greater public say over how they are represented in Parliament by giving people a referendum on proposed changes to the electoral system.
The cost of Parliament will be reduced by reducing the size of the House of Commons and by making the size of constituencies more equal.
The average Welsh constituency has some 55,000 voters compared to 70,000 in England.
A reduction in the number of Welsh MPs at Westminster is a natural consequence of the Assembly being granted more powers.
The Prime Minister has repeated his commitment to holding a referendum as soon as it is practicable to enable the people of Wales to decide whether they wish further law making powers to be devolved to the National Assembly.
At the same time, the coalition recognises the concerns expressed by the Holtham Commission on the system of devolution funding.
We know Labour supports the Barnett Formula.
The former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liam Byrne, said in a letter to Roger Williams MP, and I quote:
‘Wales is well funded. Identifiable public spending per head in Wales is 14 per cent above England’
And on a visit to Cardiff during the election campaign, Alastair Darling said:
‘We intend to maintain the Barnett Formula because it works’.
In Scotland, the SNP manifesto contains the commitment:
‘We will press for the fair application of the Barnett Formula’.
However, the priority of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Government remains the reduction of the deficit and any change to the system must await the stabilisation of the public finances.
Mr Llywydd, the Queen’s Speech addresses the problems facing Britain today.
It aims to build a strong economy, reform our public services and our politics, encourage individual and social responsibility and restore our freedoms and our civil liberties.
I support the motion.”
