Westminster Week
Posted by Kitty Ussher, MP for Burnley, at 14:20, Mon 12 November 2007:
Dear Friend,
The main event down in Westminster this week has been the Queen’s Speech, the most ceremonial event in the parliamentary calendar when the Queen sits on the throne in the House of Lords and announces the bills that will be introduced by her government in the next year. Every MP has their own particular views on the day’s events. Some love the tradition of it and dress up in their finery. Others stay at home in a grumpy republican protest. The Lords and Ladies are dressed up to the nines and get the prime seats whereas us lot, the mere people’s representatives, get rudely summoned by Mr Black Rod, the Queen’s Flunkey, and take great pride in ritually slamming the door in his face at the ignomy of being requested to do something by the Queen. We then dutifully troop off to the House of Lords to cram in at the back, standing room only, and crane to see Her Majesty tell us what it is we’ll be doing for the next year. Except that in this modern day and age, some TV screens have helpfully been set up near the entrance to the Lords for the benefit of MPs who are either too short or too far down the queue to have any hope of seeing anything. The real debate then starts in the afternoon with the prime minister and the leader of the opposition jousting in the Commons over the detail of the proposed legislation.
The themes of this year’s Queen’s Speech are security, aspiration and democracy. There are over two dozen pieces of legislation in the pipeline. Top of the list is a proposal to extend the right of parents to work flexibly, to better support families trying to deal with the pressures of bringing up children while also bringing in an income. We also want to extend educational opportunity to all our young people by ensuring they stay in education or training until age 18, including new measures to extend apprenticeship opportunities. There’ll be a bill to increase housing supply. Services for vulnerable children will be improved as well as better youth and community facilities. The climate change bill will legislate to limit carbon emissions and there are also proposals to share power more effectively across society, not simply to concentrate it in Westminster.
For my part I will be the minister responsible for three and a half pieces of legislation in the next year. I’ll be taking through a bill that uses the money lying in unused and historic dormant bank accounts and uses it to build more youth facilities in Burnley and indeed every constituency up and down the country (but do not fear, if the real owner of the money ever resurfaces then they will always get their money back). I’ll also be the minister responsible for any changes in the law we need to make in the wake of the events at Northern Rock a few weeks back. And next week I’ll be in charge of a little bill that ratifies the agreement of December 2005 on the EU budget. The “half” a Bill is the routine Finance Bill that all Treasury ministers work on in the spring of each year.
In the meantime, the main constituency news to report is the start of the building work on the new site for Burnley College; the first turf was cut this Wednesday on their site down at Princess Way. I am immensely proud of our achievements as a town in taking this project forward and would like to pay huge tribute not only to the college but to all involved in the project, as well as thanking the various arms of national government that have helped with the finance. In the long term I am sure we will look back at the work done in 2005-07 to build a new college, university and enterprise park on this site and agree that it was essential to secure our town’s economic prosperity in the 21st century.
Kind Regards,
Kitty Ussher MP
6 ways to contact Kitty Ussher MP
Write to: House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA or 2 Victoria Street, Burnley BB11 1DD Phone: 01282 450840 Fax: 01282 839623 By email: ussherk@parliament.uk Web: www.kittyussher.com In person: Come to office
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