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The Queen's Speech

Posted by Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston, at 08:43, Fri 11 May 2012:

This week saw the Queen’s speech mark the start of the new parliamentary session.

It’s a huge ceremony, a bit like a wedding. Peers come in gowns, and their wives in tiaras (not peers’ husbands, apparently – so much for equality). Even some MPs seemed to have dressed up. But the MPs are still forced to cram in at the back of the House of Lords to hear what the Queen’s saying.

This time, she didn’t say much. Of course, she doesn’t write the speech. It’s written for her by the government.

So it’s not surprising it was so thin.

Nothing about tackling unemployment – yet nearly 3 million people are now out of work.

Nothing to kickstart growth in the economy – yet thanks to George Osborne, we’re experiencing the first double dip recession in decades as the economy shrinks.

Nothing to help families with the rising cost of living.

Smoke and mirrors on social care.

House of Lords reform’s still in there. But with so many Tories opposed to it, who knows if that bill will still be standing at the end of the parliamentary session.

We now have 5 days to debate the speech – but with so little material to go on, it’s hardly surprising the first day’s debate finished early. There simply was nothing to say.

The next day, health secretary Andrew Lansley announced that, despite a tribunal ruling telling him to do so, he was refusing to publish the NHS risk register. This assesses the risks of the massive reorganisation plans contained in the Health and Social Care Act.

This is a really outrageous decision. The public have every right to know. As Andy Burnham said in response to Lansley, the NHS doesn’t belong to Ministers, it belongs to the British public.

I challenged Lansley on the risks faced by the NHS here in Trafford. The reorganisation of hospital services, the uncertainty about the future of A+E provision at Trafford General, the move to GP commissioning at a time when massive cuts to social care are increasing GPs’ workload and reducing provision, the reconfiguring of our ambulance service, the commissioning of community services in six separate packages – this is a huge stew of change, uncertainty and chaos, putting huge pressure on NHS staff. I really fear for the stability of our NHS locally. Yet Lansley brushed me aside – nothing to do with him.

He needs to be careful. Nurses, midwives, doctors, patients, healthcare specialists, all oppose his reorganisation plans. And this week we had a powerful reminder of what happens when public sector workers are ignored. Thousands, including many police officers, came to Westminster to demonstrate against cuts, changes to pensions, and their dissatisfaction with the government.

The government’s policies are catastrophic for public sector workers, and for every member of the public who relies on these services. No wonder more and more people are getting angry. No wonder Labour won more than 800 seats last week in local elections across the country. Here in Trafford, Labour had the largest share of the vote of any political party as local people registered their protest too.

So we’ll carry on fighting to force this obstructive, arrogant, unfair and incompetent government out. If you’d like to help us do that, please get in touch.