As it happened: Queen's Speech and MPs debate

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The Queen has outlined the government's priorities for the year ahead, as she officially reopened Parliament.

In a ten-minute speech in the House of Lords, she highlighted 30 laws that ministers intend to pass in the coming year.

This includes a number of bills carried over from the previous "session" of Parliament, which ended in April.

It also includes a number of bills included in past Queen's Speeches.

Here is a summary of the main points.

The Queen delivered her speech at the State Opening of Parliament in the House of Lords, in her first major public engagement since the death of the Duke of Edinburgh.

We leave you with a few of our favourite images of the day. And you can find more here.

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Here are the key points:

• 30 Bills were announced by the Queen in her first public engagement since the death of the Duke of Edinburgh
• The buzz word was "levelling up" with the government promising to rebuild the economy post-pandemic for everyone in the UK
• There's a promise to outlaw so-called gay conversion therapy after a consultation and to give more powers to the police
• Critics pointed to the lack of a Bill for funding social care, despite promises to being forward proposals later this year
• Keir Starmer says its omission from the speech is "unforgiveable"
• He says the government's legislative programme "papers over the cracks" and is "packed with short term gimmicks"
• Starmer says "there is no excuse" for "inaction on cladding" with thousands "still trapped in dangerous buildings"
• The prime minister said the mantra "jabs, jabs jabs becomes jobs, jobs, jobs" as the country reopens after the pandemic and unleashes "pent up energy".
• Boris Johnson says a Covid inquiry will be held in this session of the Parliament
• He says the pandemic has proven "emphatically" the benefit of the union with all parts of the UK working together
• SNP's Iain Blackford says there has been an "electoral earthquake" in Scotland and there is a mandate for an independence referendum

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"Wales has returned a pro-devolution parliament," says Liz Saville Roberts, Plaid Cymru's leader in Westminster.

She says the SNP has a right to hold an independence referendum.

She acknowledges the Conservatives' success but says they are the "party of England and not the UK".

She criticises the government's failure to meet its manifesto commitment to reforming social care, adding that "in this year of all years" we should recognise the work of carers.

She said, like Dickens saw social horrors of Victorian poverty, "we might be looking in to the future" at the conditions in the care system and what people have experienced this year.

"What we have regarded as being acceptable for loved ones in their homes and care homes, that needs to be addressed."

She urges the government to work across Parliament and with the devolved administrations.

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The former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is taking part via video link.

He says post-Covid Britain has demonstrated "fantastic community solidarity" but also worsening poverty and a mental health crisis.

We have to recognise that we live in a "deeply unequal society" he says and the "way out" is in investment in infrastructure and public services and legislation to end practices like fire and re-hire in the workplace.

Social care must be treated as if it is part of the NHS, he says, with universal access.

On housing, he say renters need greater protections that their rents will be controlled and that they will have access to social housing if necessary.

There are some "depressing parts" of the speech on civil liberties he says such as the Police Bill.

Concluding his speech Corbyn says: "The world is at a crossroads, of inequality in justice and poverty, which Covid has shown, the need for universal health care around the world. It's also shown the need for us to urgently address the environmental crisis."

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DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson says it is a testament to the people of Northern Ireland over their past 100 years, that through challenges, the nation of Northern Ireland is here today.

He says he believes that the Northern Ireland protocol has an impact on the Northern Ireland economy and livelihoods which is "unacceptable".

When he speaks to people in his constituency, he says the Northern Ireland Protocol, which is part of the Brexit agreement, is impacting their ability to trade with Great Britain.

He says he does not believe that the Protocol should continue in its current form, and "should be replaced with measures" that fully accept the Northern Irish people's place within the UK, he states.

If Northern Ireland is finding that it is harder to trade with Great Britain, then that is a "levelling down," he warns. He adds that this is "undermining the peace process" as instability arises from people being unhappy.

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Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey says everyone in the country is grateful to the scientists, the vaccinators and the healthcare workers who have helped the public in the past year.

There needs to be a "better deal for bereaved families," many who have lost a parent during the coronavirus pandemic were unmarried, and this complicates payments, he says.

Davey says the government are "dragging their feet" on obeying the law, and that many families who've lost an unmarried parent during Covid are still not getting payments to help. He says the UK courts have decided that the government must make these payments, but these are still not forthcoming.

He criticises the government's "undemocratic planning reforms," which "are another example of this government's authoritarian" elements, such as, he says, restricting the right to protest.

He says requiring photo ID to vote will disproportionately affect ethnic minorities.

He warns that there is a "workforce disaster" impending as nearly every hospital has at least one vacancy for an anaesthetist.

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The former Conservative PM, Theresa May, is up next.

She welcomes the commitment to measures to improve mental health but notes there was no specific Mental Health Act in the speech and says it would be good to see a timetable soon.

Ensuring online safety for all, especially children, is also to be welcomed she says but she urges the government not to delay the Bill.

Cuts to overseas aid will have an impact on combating modern slavery she says and projects dealing with it will be cut.

She urges the government to look again, because "if we want to show our values as a country" then "we should be doing everything we can" to ensure the UK's contributions are protected.

On affordable housing, Theresa May says, "of course" we need to build more homes, but the government bill gives more power to property developers and "will see the wrong homes being built in the wrong places".

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The government’s Environment Bill has been delayed so long, it’s now on its third Queen’s Speech. That’s said to be a record.

It was previously dubbed a lodestar and a flagship bill. Now it’s a landmark.

Mr Johnson wants the Bill passed before the vital climate meeting, COP26, in November. So it urgently needs Parliamentary time.

The Bill introduces the new green governmental watchdog – the Office of Environmental Protection, taking over the oversight role from the EU. Green campaigners say it’s not independent enough.

It sets “a framework” for legally-binding targets on air quality, water, waste and species diversity. Environmentalists doubt that targets will be firm enough to fulfil the PM’s ambition of restoring Nature.

An amendment to the Bill to prevent sewage flowing into rivers during storms will be introduced – that’s welcomed.

But greens are worried about the Planning Bill – the Govt says it will protect the environment, but others fear the opposite.

Follow Roger on Twitter @rharrabin.

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Labour chair of the public accounts committee Meg Hillier asks if levelling up "actually means levelling down" for her constituency of Hackey South and Shoreditch in London.

She says there are promises of more homes, but over the past six years "there has been a lack of delivery".

There are bits of the Queen's Speech that she will support, she says, but she "will watch like a hawk" the spending of government.

The UK needs more homes, she says, but she asks if the ones committed by the government "will truly be affordable".

She says her constituents are sometimes living in cramped living arrangements, and she says the prime minister "needs to look at the reality of people's lives".

In her constituency, Hackney South and Shoreditch, the average house price is 17 times of the average wage, she states.

She says she is please the Environment Bill has been carried over from the last session of parliament, "but let's hope we see more detail, more meaningful steps towards action on this issue", she says.

She says her committee has spent some time looking at environment and climate change issues: "We have found the government wanting, promising, with big, broad brush headlines, the earth, but potentially in its inaction potentially actually damaging the earth. There is no planet B, we have to get it right, now", she says.

She says, in general, he Queen's Speech has bits in it that she wants to support, but "we've seen promises made and not delivered... cheap headlines over substance just let people down".

Sir Peter ends his speech by asking about plans for a Holocaust memorial in Westminster and he says current plans are not acceptable.

Will the PM get involved to ensure "there is a proper memorial" for the sake of all those who died in the Holocaust he asks?

"What is being put forward now is the wrong proposal in the wrong place in the wrong style" he says.

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Sir Peter Bottomley, the Father of the House - the current longest serving MP - is up next.

He begins by referencing those who were killed in Ballymurphy in Belfast in 1971 and says the House should consider what lessons need to learned.

He says he was glad there was nothing in the Queen's Speech about cutting the overseas aid budget and says one of points of leadership is to change your mind.

He then turns to building safety and leaseholders being asked to foot the bill for fire safety works. Will the PM have a summit with the cladding groups on fire safety, he asks?

Provide all the money that is needed, he says, and then find out who can sue who is responsible, otherwise "people's lives are impossible".

The government "has to step in" he adds.

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Ian Blackford ends his speech saying the SNP government is investing over £1bn in the next parliament to close the school attainment gap.

He says the UK government had to be "shamed into action by a footballer" to give free school meals to schoolchildren.

He states that while benefits are being reduced in the UK, the Scottish government continues to increase them.

The government are laying the groundwork for "more Tory austerity and more Tory cuts," he adds.

"Westminster has chosen its future, a job destroying Brexit," he states, while saying the SNP are focused on "steering people through the pandemic and kick starting our economy".

He says there is "now a fresh democratic commitment," and an independence referendum "is now a question of when, not if".

Ian Blackford says that since the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the UK has lost access to the EU, and people are losing their right to live and work in the EU.

Blackford says "the message is very clear" and "there is a mandate for an independence referendum". He says it is up to the Scottish Parliament when that referendum will take place.

If the prime minister secures a majority in Westminster, then people expect their programme of government to be carried out, he adds, but people have voted for the SNP in Holyrood and the government may not be able to get a referendum on independence.

He urges the prime minister "to think again" on the SNP's request for another referendum.

The government has "contempt" for Scotland, he states.

Those in Scotland are facing "years of right wing and Brexit obsessed" government, something which they "haven't voted for", he says.

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The SNP's Westminster Leader Ian Blackford says this Queen's Speech comes "at a time of crisis" but an opportunity for change.

He says "people's clear desire" is that "we change things for the better".

He says the people of Scotland "turned out in record numbers to re-elect the SNP government for a fourth consecutive term".

He says "this electoral earthquake now unlocks the electoral path that will determine Scotland's future," and he says it is for the people of Scotland to decide their future.

"It is important that over the coming weeks and months" that MPs can debate "honestly" about the options open to Scotland in the future, he says.

He says the SNP stood "on a very clear manifesto commitment" to give the people another say in independence.

The SNP has won the highest share of votes out of any party, he adds.

The prime minister concludes his speech saying: "We will continue with ever greater intensity to connect talent with opportunity - for the British people to achieve their full potential at last."

Johnson says it is an enormous task, which has been made more difficult and urgent by the pandemic.

"But it is the right task for this country now", he says, "and this Queen speech equips us with the essential tools to do it".

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Johnson says everything the government does will be done as "one United Kingdom".

The union has "seldom proven its worth more emphatically than in this pandemic" he says.

Jobs in Scotland were safeguarded by the Treasury he says, and the entire country will benefit from free trade agreements signed as a result of Brexit.

"We will be a force for good in the world as one United Kingdom", particularly on the environment.