be in a position to see the signal being given to the lord chancellor. there we are. lord chancellor kenneth clarke has presented the speech to her majesty. and she has acknowledged the receipt of the speech, which she will now prepare to read. >> my lords and members of the house of commons, my government's legislative program will focus on economic growth, justice, and constitutional reform.

my ministers' first priority will be to reduce the deficit and restore economic stability. legislation will be introduced to reduce burdens on business by repealing unnecessary legislation and to limit state inspection of businesses. my government will introduce legislation to reform competition law to promote enterprise and fair markets. my government will introduce legislation to establish a green investment bank. measures will be brought forward to further strengthen regulation of the financial services sector, and implemented at the recommendations of the independent commission on banking. my government will introduce legislation to establish an

independent to ensure supermarkets deal fairly. a bill will be introduced to reduce burdens on charity, enabling them to claim additional payments on small donations. my government will propose reform of the electricity market to deliver secure, clean, and afford electricity and ensure prices are fair. a draft bill will be published to reform the water industry in england and wales. my government will bring forward measures to modernize the pension system and reform the state pension, creating a fair, simple, and sustainable foundation for private saving. legislation will be introduced to reform public service

pensions in line with the recommendations of the independent commission on public service pensions. a draft will be published setting out measures to close the audit commission and accomplish new arrangements for the audit of local public bodies. my government will strive to improve the lives of children and families. my government will propose measures to improve provision for disabled children and children with special educational needs. new arrangements will be proposed to support children involved in family law cases, reform court processes for children in care, and strengthen the road of the children's commissioner. measures will be proposed to make parental leave more flexible so both parents may

share parenting responsibilities and balance work and family commitments. a draft bill will be published to modernize adult care and support in england. my government will continue to work with the 15 other commonwealth realms to take forward reform of the rules governing succession to the crown. legislation will be brought forward which will introduce individual registration of electors and improve the administration of elections. a bill will be brought forward to reform the composition of the house of lords. my government will continue to work constructively and cooperatively with the divulged institutions. members of the house of commons, estimates for the public services will be laid before you.

my lords and members of the house of commons, my government is committed to reducing and preventing crime. a bill will be introduced to establish the national crime agency to tackle the most serious and organized crime and strengthen border security. the courts and tribunal service will be reformed to increase efficiency, transparency, and judicial diversity. legislation will be introduced to protect freedom of speech and reform the law of defamation. my government will introduce legislation to strengthen oversight of the security and intelligent agencies. this will also allow courts through the limited use of closed proceedings to hear a greater range of evidence in national security cases.

my government intends to bring forward measures to maintain the ability of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to access vital communications data under strict safeguards to protect the public subject to scrutiny of draft. my government will seek the approval of parliament related to the agreed financial stability mechanism within the euro area. my government will seek the approval of parliament on the anticipated access of croatia to the european union. my government will work to support a secure and stable afghanistan, to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation, including in iran, and to bring greater stability to the horn of africa.

in the middle east and north africa, my government will support the extension of political and economic freedom in countries in transition. my government has set out firm plans to spend national income as a development assistance from 2013. this will be the first time the united kingdom has met this agreed international commitment. my government will build strategic partnerships with the emerging powers. the united kingdom will assume the presidency of the g8 in 2013. my government will use this opportunity to promote international security and prosperity. in the year of the diamond

jubilee, prince philip and i will continue to take part in celebrations across the united kingdom. the prince of wales and other members of my family are traveling widely to take part in festivities throughout the commonwealth. prince philip and i look forward to the london olympic and paralympic games, and to welcoming visitors from around the world to london and venues throughout the country. other members will be laid before you. my lords and members of the house of commons, i pray that the blessing of all mighty god may rest upon your counsels. >> counselor approaches again now that the speech is being delivered.

the queen returns the speech. put safely back in the purse. and kenneth clarke takes his position again near the marshall. pages of honor move into position. everyone stands in the house of lords. for the queen's departure. the queen and the duke will make their way around to the left, acknowledge the members of the house of lords, the lords spiritual and temporal. a return through the prince's chamber, and again in procession through the royal gallery and

back into the robing room, ready for the royal departure. and led into the royal gallery once again by the heralds and by the two maces, the mace bearers, lord speaker, baroness desouza. and just there on the left, an ancient office as indeed the office of the marquis of chumbley, one of the great offices of state, performing an important role not just at the palace of westminster, where he is in charge of the royal parts of the palace, the royal gallery being probably the biggest part, but the robing room as well, and the sovereign's entrance.

but sharing responsibility too for some of the other parts of the palace, including the westminster hall. lord stirrup with the sword of state. and the yeoman of the guard still providing their guard of honor. and as they pass through the great archway and are surrounded by portraits of the queen and the duke and queen elizabeth queen mother. and at the other end of the palace of westminster, we have the speaker's chaplain there leading the way with david cameron and ed miliband, having heard the speech. we reckon on a quick calculation there were 19 bills in the speech. always a little of a debate

about this because there can be some draft bills, and do we include the draft bills in the total. around 19 bills, we think. we'll talk a little more about them in a second. but what happens here is the speaker returns. he leads all the mps back to the green benches of the house of commons, an all together more sober and more spartan chamber in that sense. and they are preparing for several days of debate on the queen's speech. the prime minister, leader of the opposition will feature prominently in the opening stages of that. so it's time to have some response i think as the mps take their place in the chamber. of course you'll all be part of this debate. justine, i'm going ask you a mischief question. did you have a bill in the queen's speech? >> not for transport, although there will be drunk driving rules brought through. that will be a lead. the smaller bill i am partly responsible for is the charities

donation which i did during my time in charity in the budget last year. and that will mean if you do bucket donations in the street, you can now claim gift date on it. so that's probably my personal bit that i'm really delighted to see. >> would i be wrong to say i might be expecting high speed rail somewhere. would i be wrong? >> you would be wrong. that's quite a long process. we're looking at all the environmental work we need to do around it to be able to present a bill. and that should come at the end of next year. so it should be in next year's queen's speech. >> okay. tim, your thoughts on the individual elements. we have discussed the economy and the importance of that earlier. what there will lib dem and you as campaigners be proudly pointing to as your influence on this queen's speech? >> quite a lot of it. the banking reform specifically. if i can be a little rurally focused, nick, to go to adjudicate is massive. this is about making sure you get fair trade for british farmers.

>> how is that going to work? >> supermarkets very often end up waying producers, suppliers, farmers below the cost of milk is a headline issue, a very often paying less than what it costs. the grocery adjudicateler have the muscle to prevent that. and that's good news for consumers. but it's also extremely good news for our farmers. the idea of fair trade internationally. it's important we enforce fair trade within the uk as well. >> rachel, are there parts of the speech which you violently object to, or do you think that lots of it makes sense? >> of course there are parts of it that we would want to support, whether that's on adoption, on paternity and maternity leave, changes made by the last labor government and hopefully being taken forward by this government. of course disappointed that there is not things in the queen's speech that i think could make a real impact on families' lives, like i said before, on train fares, on energy prices, and on a jumps program.

one thing in the queen's speech that we haven't discussed yet is a draft bill on social care. >> indeed. >> and i think one of the things that would make a huge difference to the lives of older people, but also their children and grandchildren would be sorting out a system of social care in this country. i hope that we can get cross-party support for that, because it is extremely worrying for families when somebody falls ill and needs that long-term care, both in terms of the quality of the care and also in terms of the cost of the care, which is going up and up and up, and people are needing it for longer and longer. so it will be a long-term reform of adult social care could make a real difference to people's lives if we get it right. >> given that lots of viewers will be listening with interest to that, and given you've been in office as a party of two years, but this thing comes up all the time. i remember speeching by john major on care and the need to reform care of the elderly. would you at least acknowledge that it may be one of your

regrets that the labor government for so many years didn't actually instigate a much bigger reform of care than it did? >> reform is needed. and the end of the last labor government cross-party talks broke down. and i think that's a shame. i don't want to make a big party out of this. but the talks broke down last time because the conservatives walked out of them. i hope that now those talks can go forward because it would make a huge difference to people's lives. and i think all of us know somebody who is affected by this issue. and know that it's only going to grow over time, and it is a real imperative that it gets sorted. but it is an area where consensus is really important because it's a reform that is not kneed for one parliament or two, but actually for generations. >> consensus is important as well because it will be blooming expensive. let's be honest. if average life expectancy was as high as it was now in the late 1940s, i'm pretty sure our

social care would have been part of the national health service. today to do it fairly will cost money. all parties agree. >> i'm sure you're going to agree it's going to be expensive whether it's reform order not. the question is whether it's fair. at the moment it's very expensive for people who need that care. >> yeah. >> lottery about whether you need it. some people all of their homes, their savings. other people are in care, especially if they haven't got children to look after them and who care about them. don't get the care that they deserve or need. >> it's the insecurity, absolutely. >> and maybe at long last progress a draft progress on the queen's speech which we can now build on. >> i hope so. >> the queen and the duke have emerged and acknowledging those people are in that important group who would welcome the queen originally. and just at the end of the lord's speaker, baroness desouza and the lord chancellor.

yeah, chatty and i will. oh, there we are. the duke checking the speech which is what the lord chancellor might have done earlier. i wish we had a microphone there. that would be pretty good, wouldn't it? that was pretty animated. so a little element of informality and kenneth clarke with a beaming smile as the queen and the duke make their way back towards the sovereign staircase. the young members of the house of cavalry still there lining the staircase. and down towards the base of the victoria tower and the sovereign's entrance. ladies in waiting are following the procession there. right at the bottom of the staircase, we can see black rod. the heralds making their way down.

ready for the departure. they will line the pathway on the last set of stairs. the duke of norfolk sharing a few words with the queen. it's all very chatty and friendly today. a few words with the local chamberlain. ♪ the door of the australian state

coach is closed. fanfare has been sounded by the state trumpeters, the household cavalry. the footmen replace on the carriage. and the journey back to buckingham palace is now under way. salute has been given just to say that all the ready at the sovereign's entrance. they're just checking the route. coachmen move off. this is where we get a good view from our studio window.

it is dry at the moment. so after all the rain this morning, at least it's dry now. and there we have the symbol of the queen's departure, the royal standard lowered, and the union flag union jack once again flying above the victoria tower. ♪

>> the queen is safely on her way back to buckingham palace after this state opening of parliament 2012 in diamond jubilee year. and as soon as the queen has left, the imperial state crown and the sword of state and the cap of maintenance will be escorted from the palace of westminster. control of the lord chamberlin's office commander ford, formerly of the welsh guards. it's his duty to carry the crown and to make sure it's safely back inside the coach, ready for the regalia escort as we call it back to the palace itself.

>> so as this part of the pageantry goes on, within a few minutes the regalia will be on its way. we'll be getting a little more reaction, not just my guess here in the studio, but also from the central lobby of the palace of westminster, and getting a cross section of views from mps of other parties too. and just their affections on whether they think the queen's speech makes sense, whether the things in it are there for the right reasons, and whether there are indeed things they would have liked to have seen in the speech. and rachel has already explained to us there are some things she as a labor member would have wished to see. so that debate of course will be what happens in the house of commons over the next four or five days or so as the substance of the queen's speech is debated there. but the debate will be opened by the prime minister and answered by the leader of the opposition. and they will set the tone

really for the debate. also be an opportunity too in that debate for one of the younger members and one of the more experienced members of the commons to make a speech on a very high profile occasion, and to play that part in the parliamentary tradition that surrounds the queen's speech. queen alexandria's state coach, dating from the middle of the 19th century. heavily decorated in crowns. and often seen on occasions like the state opening and used precisely for this purpose for the regalia procession, to take the crown and the other emblems of sovereign's authority back and forth to the -- from buckingham palace to the palace of westminster. footmen in place.

including the barge master and some of the watermen i mentioned earlier. the watermen in days gone by who used to row the royal barge up and down the thames. so that function doesn't exist anymore. but i'm told there are 24 watermen still officially on the books of the royal household. and for the diamond jubilee pageant on the river, which i was mentioning before the queen's speech took place, there isn't a royal barge in existence anymore. so they're converting another barge for use on the day. but i'm told it will be equally spectacular. so the signal is given. everything is in place, and off they go.

midday at westminster, and the imperial state crown is being returned to buckingham palace and from there to the tower of london. [ bells ] the real sense of what would have happened as well in past centuries, the crown being taken through the streets of london as a symbol of the sovereign's authority, very much on display in every sense. so now the business is all about responding to the speech, of course. we've had a little response here in the studio. so i'm going to ask my guests here to be patient for just a few minutes, because we want

some more views as well. we'll go straight to norman smith who is inside the palace of westminster. >> here although the focus today is inevitably on westminster, the impact of the measures contained in the queen's speech will be different in different parts of the uk because obviously we now are a devolved united kingdom with different symbols and parliaments ought to consider what the impact might be outside of westminster. i'm joined by nigel dodds, and angus robertson of the snp. is there anything in the queen's speech which you think will be particularly welcome order not welcomed in northern ireland? >> thing is some interesting measures in terms of banking, splitting the retail from the investment side and some deregulation issues. but by and large the queen's speech is made up of a number of individual items. a disappointing thing for families and hard-working people in northern ireland would be nothing in terms of reducing the heavy cost of fuel, petrol and diesel, tackling the reece

crisis in terms of energy costs, cost of living. these are the issues that really affect people. i have to say there was fairly little in the queen's speech that really will impact on those kinds of issues for hard-working families and individuals and businesses. businesses have been really crushed by the lack of credit, and so much needs to be taken on that. and that's what we'll be looking for in the next parliament. >> from wales? >> i think the ombudsman issue is very interesting. wales is on its last legs unless something is donor gently. it needs teeth. it needs proper investment. i also think the green investment bank is fine provided it does have the billions necessary. i am worried about the attack on public sector pensions, and i'm interested by the whole idea of a single tier of pension, something which we've argued for many years now, a single portal into old age pension, which we think if it sets at the right level, should be quite reasonable. it would be very helpful. >> angus robertson, a comparatively light queen's

speech in terms of measures. >> i think most people whether in scotland, wales, or northern ireland, or the many viewers watching this in england will be struck by at the time we're in a double-dip recession, there really wasn't much in this queen's speech that can give them confidence that things are going to improve. the scottish government has been working very hard to persuade this government which we in scotland didn't vote for that they should bring forward shovel ready stimulus that would be a very good thing. other elements of the queen's speech, not much detail on the energy bill that will be very, very important for obvious reasons in all of our nation's and in england too. but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact there is plenty that goes on in parliament during the year that is not in the queen's speech. and there we should also be very concerned. an area of growing concern in scotland is what this government has planned for our regiments. we're going to see historic names amalgamated and abandoned. so for all these reasons i think it's a disappointing queen's speech. i think it's a