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Industry and the Environment

My hon. Friend makes an especially powerful point. Few are as eloquent as he in expressing any point of view, but I may be able to trump him by quoting the Prime Minister. In 1995, the Prime Minister told the Labour party conference:"““We all suffer crime, the poorest and most vulnerable most of all, it is the duty of the Government to protect them . . . And instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards as the Tory Right demand””—" he was wrong there—"““let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local communities.””" I agree with that. The only point with which I take issue is the Prime Minister’s comment about wasting hundreds of millions of pounds. Now he proposes to waste up to £10 billion on a system that is meant to protect us against terrorism but will not be operative until 2012 at the earliest. There is no argument for the Government’s ID card scheme and I hope that hon. Members reject it. Like all Queen’s Speeches, this one is a mixture of the good, the bad and the irrelevant. There is no theme to it and no obvious vision of society. That should trouble thoughtful Labour Members. Above all, there is too much in the Queen’s Speech. Parliament will not be able to scrutinise the proposals properly and bad law will emerge at the end. That should be a matter of genuine regret for Members of all parties.