The Queen's Speech

On the eve of the new Parliament, this is what our CPF thought should be priorities:

Immigration.       We consider our lack of control over immigration to be the root cause of most of our social or economic problems. Further, we are highly concerned that inadequate border controls make it easy for potential terrorists to travel to our country.  We need urgent measures to regain sovereignty, including, even, a moratorium to demonstrate intent.  Whilst we would have been encouraged by the Prime Minister's later announcements we would have been equally cynical about the reach and practicability of his proposals.

Deficit.        It will clearly take more than lip-service to "the long term economic plan" to insure our financial health against global shocks.  Equally, our productivity must improve if we are to even maintain our lowly position in international competitiveness. We urge decisive action early in the parliament whilst public goodwill will be at its highest and our own benches probably most accommodating. Again, we would have been encouraged by the Chancellor's later commitment to improving productivity and his acknowledgement that "our future prosperity depends upon it."

Defence.     We restate our concern about the prospect of further cuts to the armed forces budget and our contribution to NATO collective security against the background of increasing geo-political instability.  The government must revise foreign policy drivers and funding constraints for Strategic Defence & Security Review 2015. We have previously described the Conservative position on defence as complacent and reckless and we have no reason to change our opinion.

Education.  Our position in international education league tables (lamentable) is incompatible with our ambition for economic survival and regeneration.  We must achieve a dramatic improvement in productivity to make best use of the vast resources devoted to education.  The starting point for this crusade will be standards and discipline. We were dismayed that Michael Gove was moved on after having made such a positive start taking on the education blob and we are not encouraged by the present Secretary of State's lack of reforming zeal.

Boundaries and Regional Empowerment Issues.         The first priority for survival in a hostile terrain is protection and the Government should force through the Boundaries Commission recommendations. Simultaneously, as a matter of fairness to the UK as a whole, given the extent of devolved powers already, the grotesque imbalance of Scottish MPs must be addressed. We do not believe that the SNP, with their declared intention of breaking up the United Kingdom, should be treated with kid gloves.  We continue to believe that further regional empowerment should not be a political priority