The Queen’s Speech – Prince Charles to take monarch’s place for formal opening of Parliament
Dennis Skinner #DennisSkinner
The Queen has pulled out of this year’s State Opening of Parliament and the reading of the Queen’s speech, Buckingham Palace has announced.
This will be the first time since 1963 that the Queen will have missed this constitutional ceremony, which sets out the government’s legislative plans.
Prince Charles will deliver the speech on Tuesday for the Queen.
The 96-year-old monarch has mobility problems and has had to cancel a number of recent public appearances.
Until Monday evening Buckingham Palace had been saying the Queen hoped to attend, but has now confirmed she will not go the ceremony in Westminster, because of “episodic mobility problems”.
A statement said the Queen, in consultation with her doctors, had reluctantly decided not to attend the State Opening.
The Queen was due to open a new session of Parliament on Tuesday – a highly formal affair which Boris Johnson will hope to use to shore up his position as Prime Minister.
Johnson’s leadership of the Tory party is still in the balance, with the partygate scandal being weighed with the big defeats in last week’s local council elections in England and Scotland.
He will hope the Queen’s Speech, now to be delivered by Prince Charles, can give him something of a fresh start.
What is the Queen’s Speech?
Video: The Queen’s Speech to Parliament – what to expect (PA Media)
The Queen’s Speech to Parliament – what to expect
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The State Opening of Parliament for sets out the legislative agenda for the next year. Amid a lot of pomp and ceremony the monarch reads out a speech which is essentially a list of the bills the government intends to bring to parliament.
She doesn’t write the speech, government officials do, and it will give Boris Johnson the chance to give for a mini relaunch after the local government elections.
When is it on?
Prince Charles will speak about 11.30am from her golden throne in the House of Lords. It is worth tuning in before then on the BBC News channel to see the procession and to see the reaction when Black Rod marches from the Lords to bang on the door of the Commons and summon MPs.
Previously the knock on the door was always met with a witty reply by left-wing republican Dennis Skinner MP. But since he lost his seat in 2019 no one has properly taken on this informal part of the ceremony.
What will be in the speech?
Governments always try to give the Queen’s speech a theme – this year’s will be growing the economy, easing the burden on families and levelling up – but all Queen’s speeches tend to be a mix of flagship manifesto measures and more routine bits of legislative housekeeping.
What bills are expected?
Johnson is planning to announce the new Brexit bills that will cut red tape and “unnecessary barriers inherited from the EU”.
What is not in it?
There has been little concrete from Ministers on the growing cost of living crisis. There are opposition demands for an emergency budget to help people out with a windfall tax on oil companies.
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