The Queen's Speech: The Commons Debate: Leaders clash over 'Basics'

AFTER 14 years of Conservative government, the Prime Minister's 'Back to Basics' theme was no more and no less than 'an appalling admission of failure', John Smith, the Labour leader, said in his first response to the Queen's Speech.

Mr Smith noted that the 'magic words' were not actually in the formal text delivered by the Queen in the Lords. 'We should perhaps be grateful that Her Majesty was not obliged to repeat the mantra.'

But both the Labour leader and John Major made plain that 'Back to Basics' will form the political battleground for the new session. Challenged by Bruce Grocott, a Labour backbencher, who then was 'to blame' for last 14 years, Mr Major said it had been a time when average incomes had risen, more had been spent on the NHS, more young people had gone into further and higher education and the value of pensions had risen.

'But there is one battle I concede we did not win, and that was the battle against fashionable opinion and the theories of those who are light years away from the instincts of the British people.'

Mr Major said that at the heart of the Queen's Speech were measures to tackle crime, improve teaching and make the economy more effective. 'I believe these are the right policies because they provide the foundations for a successful, tolerant and responsible society.

'We can raise standards in our schools, make our streets safer, and make our economy more competitive by building on these basic values.' He was 'not surprised' that Mr Smith did not understand Back to Basics. How could he when Labour had voted against every piece of legislation for tougher penalties against crime and against testing in schools? 'Basic values means basic economic values like low inflation, free markets and a climate for encouraging free enterprise. Basic social values, like self-discipline, respect for the law, concern for others, individual responsibility and an emphasis on getting the basics of education right first. That does mean taking on as well, the spread of politically correct thinking.'

Mr Smith said Back to Basics was a 'political sham'. People's basic aspirations were for jobs, a truly national health service, well-equipped schools and valued teachers, decent and affordable homes and a competitive industry. But the Speech was irrelevant to these needs. 'It is so far removed from them that instead of going back to basics, it should be back to the drawing board.'

The Conservatives had decided they could no longer plausibly defend their own record, Mr Smith said. 'Instead, they would have us wipe out from our consciousness the fact that they have been in power for the longest single period since the Second World War.'

Ministers wanted to shy away from the fact that since 1979 economic growth on average had been only 1.7 per cent a year. The economy was weighed down by massive deficits in public finances and overseas trade, there was mass unemployment, record homelessness and poverty and a 120 per cent increase in crime, Mr Smith said. 'With a record like that no wonder they want to divert attention from their own responsibility.'

The main area where Mr Smith made common cause with the Prime Minister was over Northern Ireland. The Government should call all the parties back to the negotiating table, the Labour leader said. 'If the IRA genuinely and clearly abandon the use of violence, there should be no objection to the participation of Sinn Fein in constitutional discussions.'

Mr Major said Ulster remained at the head of the Government's priorities. Terrorism had claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people since 1969 - 75 of them this year.

There was a palpable mood for peace in Northern Ireland, but there was also, 'amongst some people, a feeling that the dead must be endlessly avenged; that any accommodation with the opposing viewpoint would betray those who have died.

'Surely the right memorial to those who have been murdered is to make sure that no one is murdered in future.' Avenging the dead meant more dead.

The Government was not looking for peace at any price, but there might now be a chance and it must be explored, Mr Major told the House. 'No party and no organisation can exercise a veto on progress.'

Talks were bilateral because a premature attempt to convene a round-table conference could be counterproductive, he said, repeating that Sinn Fein 'could enter the political arena if the IRA's violence ended for good and was so demonstrated over a sufficient interval'. A statement of intent was not, by itself, enough.

Reaffirming that there could be no change in Northern Ireland's status without the freely expressed consent of its people, Mr Major said: 'We are ready to respond to a cessation of violence. It is now for Sinn Fein and the IRA, and equally for the loyalist paramilitary organisations, to draw the right conclusions.'

Paddy Ashdown, the Liberal Democrat leader, singled out education policy for particular criticism. There should have been a Bill giving every child a right to pre-school education, he said. There was not a single extra penny for education, just 'another quango' for teacher training.

'This a prgramme whose lightness betrays this government's bankruptcy of ideas.'

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