![\"Powered](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/image.guardian.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2010\/03\/01\/poweredbyguardianBLACK.png?resize=140%2C45\")
This article titled “Queen’s speech 2016: 21 bills including plan to ‘disrupt extremists’\u2013 live” was written by Andrew Sparrow, for theguardian.com on Wednesday 18th May 2016 16.26 UTC<\/a><\/p>\n 5.26pm BST<\/span> <\/p>\n If anyone wants to deliver a more equal society, an economy that works for everyone and a society where there is opportunity for all, it takes an active government to do it, not the driverless car heading in the wrong direction that we have with this Government at the present time.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n He criticised the government for promoting austerity as a \u201cpolitical choice\u201d.<\/p>\n When you cut adult social care it has an impact on National Health Service accident and emergency departments. When you saddle young people with more debt you impede their ability to buy a home or start a family. When you fail to build housing and cap housing benefit then homelessness and the number of families in temporary accommodation increases. When you slash the budgets of local authorities then leisure centres close, libraries close, children\u2019s centres close. When you close fire stations and cut firefighters\u2019 jobs, then response times increase and more people are in danger of dying in fires. This austerity is a political choice, not an economic necessity, and it\u2019s a wrong choice for our country made by a Government with the wrong priorities – and it\u2019s women that have been hit hardest by these cuts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And he started his speech by stressing the important of avoiding war.<\/p>\n July will mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, an episode of frankly needless carnage and horror. This week marked the centenary of the Sykes-Picot agreement where Britain and France divided up the Ottoman empire into spheres of influence, arbitrarily establishing borders that have frankly been the cause of many conflicts ever since. These two events should remind us in this House of two things. Firstly, that decisions we take have consequences, and it is our armed forces that face the consequences of failed foreign and military policy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n For children, we make the choice to rebalance the system in favour of faster adoption so more children get a loving and stable home. For care leavers, we choose to put them first for training and jobs so the most disadvantaged get a better chance to make a good life for themselves. And for all our young people, we offer the chance to do National Citizen Service. For school leavers, we make the choice to extend educational opportunity and allow the creation of new universities. For low-income families, we choose to offer new support to build up their savings through the first ever Help to Save scheme. For those who want to get on the housing ladder, we\u2019re choosing to build a million new homes. And we choose to deliver the biggest reform of our prison system for a century, knocking down the old, outdated prisons and radically reforming education and rehabilitation of offenders. This is a Queen\u2019s Speech that combines economic security with extending life chances for all, it\u2019s the Queen\u2019s Speech of a progressive, one nation Conservative Government.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n He also included a joke about his own EU referendum campaign scaremongering.<\/p>\n [Caroline Spelman] referred to her work as Church Estates Commissioner and everyone in this House knows she is a deeply committed Christian. This would have come in handy during her time in Defra when she had to deal with floods, droughts, food shortages and even disease. Indeed, everything short of a plague of locusts, which of course I will be predicting in my next speech on Europe.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nAfternoon summary<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n