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| Politics live blog: MPs debate health bill and Queen addresses Parliament | Politics live blog: MPs debate health bill and Queen addresses Parliament |
| (40 minutes later) | |
| 10.28am: While MPs and peers wait for the Queen in Westminster Hall, some of them have been busy on Twitter. Here's a selection. | |
| From Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary | |
| Looking forwrd to address by HM The Queen after she has unveiled breathtaking window designed by British artist John Reyntiens | |
| From Labour MP Mary Creagh | |
| Off to see the Queen's speech in Westminster Hall. Real buzz about the place. | |
| From Conservative MP Claire Perry | |
| Much excitement in Westminster Hall as crowds assemble. Regretting not wearing a hat but many other plumes to admire. | |
| From Conservative MP Conor Burns | |
| What a beautiful sunny day for the Queen's address to Parliament | |
| From Labour peer Stewart Wood | |
Waiting for the Queen in Westminster Hall, listening to the excellent warm-up band, and wondering if they do requests. | |
| From Labour MP Chris Bryant | |
| The TV camera looks like it was used on grandstand in the 1970s | |
| 10.24am: Later this week I'm interviewing Andrew Mitchell, the international development secretary. If you'd like to suggest some questions, please post them on this blog. | |
| 10.19am: You can read all today's Guardian politics stories here. And all the Guardian politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today's paper, are here. | |
| As for the rest of the papers, here are some stories and articles that are particularly interesting. | |
| • Robert Winnett and James Kirkup in the Daily Telegraph says George Osborne's plan to show people exactly how their tax is spend will reveal how much goes on welfare. | |
| The move, which will come into force in 2014, is expected to help ministers persuade voters of the need for public spending cuts, including welfare payments, the biggest source of government expenditure and which accounts for about a third of all tax revenues. | |
| For example, according to Treasury calculations based on current taxes, someone earning £50,000 would be informed that their taxes will fund £4,727 worth of welfare payments, including £493 of housing benefit annually and £860 in sickness benefits. | |
| Somebody earning £25,000 spends the equivalent of £1,900 on welfare payments — almost four weeks of paid work, the figures show. | |
| One government source said: "When people see how much they pay towards welfare, the argument about whether to cap benefits will be brought into sharp relief." | |
| • Chris Giles in the Financial Times (subscription) says the Office for Budget Responsibility will slightly upgrade its growth forecast for 2012. | |
| Treasury officials have expressed relief that the OBR's forecasts, which were finalised on March 7, are moving in line with private sector forecasts and are therefore optimistic that there are no nasty surprises in the figures which will spook bond markets. | |
| As evidence mounts that the economy hit a trough last October and has since begun to recover, economists are confident the OBR will raise its 0.7 per cent forecast for 2012 a touch to about 0.8 per cent and will not predict a technical recession of two consecutive quarters of negative growth. | |
| • Mary Riddell in the Daily Telegraph says some Labour MPs are beginning to lose faith in Ed Balls. | |
| Santa, it seems, has smiled on Mr Balls, who is wondering "what planet" the Coalition is living on. The difficulty is that the 50p gift has been delivered at the precise moment when some Labour luminaries are becoming openly restive about life on Planet Balls. More than one senior figure is said to have met Ed Miliband privately to air concerns about Labour's dwindling credibility on the economy. | |
| As one doubter puts the Balls conundrum: "The more the Tories have messed up, and the more Ed Balls is vindicated, the further we fall behind." That "very tense" mood is said to have spread to the shadow cabinet, with those who acknowledge Mr Balls's economic brilliance and political bullishness growing anxious about Labour's inability to shift public opinion. | |
| Some argue that with this Budget, Labour is about to miss a rare chance to set out just how it would impose fiscal discipline. In the absence of such a plan, sceptics fear that the Opposition cannot win in 2015. Mr Balls, who thinks mainstream party opinion is for more public spending, is not for turning. Despite some concessions on the "politics of pain" that Labour will have to impose, he considers that the party would appear "complete monkeys" if it had embraced Coalition-style austerity. | |
| • Rachel Sylvester in the Times (paywall) says George Osborne has been reminding colleagues what the average salary actually is. | |
| The Chancellor, who plays his politics more like chess than poker, understands the risk better than anyone. In interviews at the weekend, he repeatedly emphasised that this would be a "Budget for working people," aimed at "low and middle earners". In meetings at the Treasury and No 10, officials say that he has repeatedly reminded his colleagues that the average salary in Britain is only £26,000, less than a fifth of what a Cabinet minister earns. | |
| According to one ally, he puts as much importance on the "empathy" described in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments as on the free market economics championed in The Wealth of Nations. The search has been on for what officials call "this year's non-dom levy" — the proposal to charge those registered abroad for tax purposes that Mr Osborne announced alongside the inheritance tax cut at the Tory conference in 2007. It wrongfooted Mr Brown, forcing him to abandon plans to call an election, one of the Chancellor's proudest political achievements. | |
| It is likely that Mr Osborne will announce a new minimum rate of tax that everyone will pay, irrespective of how they define their income, as part of a range of measures designed to squeeze the super-rich. A version of the "tycoon tax" floated by Mr Clegg, this is said to go beyond closing loopholes and clamping down on stamp duty evasion — "the Office for Budgetary Responsibility is a built-in defence against wishy-washiness," says one insider. Mr Osborne is also expected to make the case that the Budget measures will, overall, redistribute money from rich to poor. | |
| 9.49am: Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, was on Radio 5 Live this morning renewing his call for the publication of the NHS's transitional risk register (the one explaining the risk associated with the health bill). He insisted publication would not pose a risk. | 9.49am: Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, was on Radio 5 Live this morning renewing his call for the publication of the NHS's transitional risk register (the one explaining the risk associated with the health bill). He insisted publication would not pose a risk. |
| Let's clear this up. The information tribunal dealt very clearly with this issue. It said government shouldn't publish its assessment of on-going risks beyond direct control. They're the most serious risks such as a terrorist attack or a health pandemic. But it said it should publish a specific assessment of ministers' own policies. Let's be clear about this. It's this government that's chosen to reorganise the NHS at this moment of the greatest financial challenge and that policy is putting the NHS at risk and our argument is they should be honest about those risks before they ask Parliament to approve them. | Let's clear this up. The information tribunal dealt very clearly with this issue. It said government shouldn't publish its assessment of on-going risks beyond direct control. They're the most serious risks such as a terrorist attack or a health pandemic. But it said it should publish a specific assessment of ministers' own policies. Let's be clear about this. It's this government that's chosen to reorganise the NHS at this moment of the greatest financial challenge and that policy is putting the NHS at risk and our argument is they should be honest about those risks before they ask Parliament to approve them. |
| And this is what Simon Burns, the health minister, told the same programme about why the government would not publish the risk register. | |
As you know the risk register is an internal management document issued by civil servants and ministers to formulate policy, and for those reasons we think it is wrong to put it in the public domain because it means you can't have full and frank discussions between civil servants and ministers which will consider a range of options. | As you know the risk register is an internal management document issued by civil servants and ministers to formulate policy, and for those reasons we think it is wrong to put it in the public domain because it means you can't have full and frank discussions between civil servants and ministers which will consider a range of options. |
| Having a risk register is one of the ways in which government, and it's across government, not just the Department of Health, formulates and considers policy from all angles. If one had that in the public domain immediately then you can just see people like Andy Burnham jumping on it, taking a worst case scenario and then distorting it and you could not have government functioning. | Having a risk register is one of the ways in which government, and it's across government, not just the Department of Health, formulates and considers policy from all angles. If one had that in the public domain immediately then you can just see people like Andy Burnham jumping on it, taking a worst case scenario and then distorting it and you could not have government functioning. |
| I've taken the quotes from PoliticsHome. | I've taken the quotes from PoliticsHome. |
| 9.44am: Downing Street has released the text of a letter that David Cameron has sent to Nicolas Sakozy about the shootings at the Jewish school in Toulouse yesterday. Here it is. | 9.44am: Downing Street has released the text of a letter that David Cameron has sent to Nicolas Sakozy about the shootings at the Jewish school in Toulouse yesterday. Here it is. |
| Dear Nicolas, | Dear Nicolas, |
| I was appalled to learn of the recent shootings that France has suffered, including in Toulouse this morning. People across Britain share the shock and grief that is being felt in France, and my thoughts are with the victims, their friends and their families. I know that France will draw strength and comfort from your resolute leadership at this difficult time. You can count on my every support in confronting these senseless acts of brutality and cowardice. | I was appalled to learn of the recent shootings that France has suffered, including in Toulouse this morning. People across Britain share the shock and grief that is being felt in France, and my thoughts are with the victims, their friends and their families. I know that France will draw strength and comfort from your resolute leadership at this difficult time. You can count on my every support in confronting these senseless acts of brutality and cowardice. |
| Yours, | Yours, |
| David. | David. |
| 9.32am: Here are the headline inflation figures. | 9.32am: Here are the headline inflation figures. |
| • The consumer prices index rate of inflation fell to 3.4% in February, from 3.6% in January. | • The consumer prices index rate of inflation fell to 3.4% in February, from 3.6% in January. |
| • The headline retail prices index rate of inflation fell to 3.7% in February, from 3.9% in January. | • The headline retail prices index rate of inflation fell to 3.7% in February, from 3.9% in January. |
| • The underlying RPI rate of inflation fell to 3.8% in February, from 4% in January. Here's the Office for National Statistics bulletin, with the full details (pdf). | • The underlying RPI rate of inflation fell to 3.8% in February, from 4% in January. Here's the Office for National Statistics bulletin, with the full details (pdf). |
| 8.45am: It's special occasion time at the Houses of Parliament. The entrance to Westminster Hall has been spruced up, the security seems tighter than usual and the broadcasters are camping out on Abingdon Green. All this for the final day of the health and social security bill? No, it's because the Queen is coming to address Parliament. We don't know what she's going to say because, as a BBC correspondent was complaining on the Today programme this morning, Buckingham Palace doesn't go in for advance briefing (unlike the Treasury, which has been pumping out yet more information about tomorrow's budget, including plans for everyone to get a detailed statement about how their taxes are spent and details of its credit-easing scheme). It would be fun if the Queen were to use her speech to urge the government to drop the health bill. But somehow I think that's unlikely. | 8.45am: It's special occasion time at the Houses of Parliament. The entrance to Westminster Hall has been spruced up, the security seems tighter than usual and the broadcasters are camping out on Abingdon Green. All this for the final day of the health and social security bill? No, it's because the Queen is coming to address Parliament. We don't know what she's going to say because, as a BBC correspondent was complaining on the Today programme this morning, Buckingham Palace doesn't go in for advance briefing (unlike the Treasury, which has been pumping out yet more information about tomorrow's budget, including plans for everyone to get a detailed statement about how their taxes are spent and details of its credit-easing scheme). It would be fun if the Queen were to use her speech to urge the government to drop the health bill. But somehow I think that's unlikely. |
| MPs will be debating the health bill in the afternoon. The bill cleared the Lords last night and today's debate should be the final stage before the bill gets Royal Assent. My colleague Denis Campbell, the Guardian's health correspondent, will be contributing to the blog. | MPs will be debating the health bill in the afternoon. The bill cleared the Lords last night and today's debate should be the final stage before the bill gets Royal Assent. My colleague Denis Campbell, the Guardian's health correspondent, will be contributing to the blog. |
| Here's the full agenda for the day. | Here's the full agenda for the day. |
| 9am: The cabinet meets. | 9am: The cabinet meets. |
| 9.15am: Sir Michael Wilshaw, the Ofsted chief inspector, gives a speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank. | 9.15am: Sir Michael Wilshaw, the Ofsted chief inspector, gives a speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank. |
| 9.30am: Inflation figures are published. | 9.30am: Inflation figures are published. |
| 9.45am: Unions learn whether they have won their Court of Appeal battle against a government decision to change the way public sector pension increases are calculated. | 9.45am: Unions learn whether they have won their Court of Appeal battle against a government decision to change the way public sector pension increases are calculated. |
| 10am: Bernard Hogan-Howe, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, gives evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. Other witnesses will include crime correspondents Justin Penrose of the Sunday Mirror and Tom Pettifor of the Daily Mirror, and West Midlands Police chief constable Chris Sims. | 10am: Bernard Hogan-Howe, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, gives evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. Other witnesses will include crime correspondents Justin Penrose of the Sunday Mirror and Tom Pettifor of the Daily Mirror, and West Midlands Police chief constable Chris Sims. |
| 10.30am: The Queen addresses MPs and peers in Westminster Hall to mark her Diamond Jubilee. | 10.30am: The Queen addresses MPs and peers in Westminster Hall to mark her Diamond Jubilee. |
| 1.30pm: Unison hold a protest in Westminster against the health bill. | 1.30pm: Unison hold a protest in Westminster against the health bill. |
| 2.30pm: Nick Clegg answers deputy prime minister's questions in the Commons. | 2.30pm: Nick Clegg answers deputy prime minister's questions in the Commons. |
| 3.40pm: MPs debate the emergency motion about whether the health bill should be postponed until the bill's risk register has been published. The debate will last for 90 minutes. | 3.40pm: MPs debate the emergency motion about whether the health bill should be postponed until the bill's risk register has been published. The debate will last for 90 minutes. |
| Around 5.30pm: MPs start their final debate on the health bill. | Around 5.30pm: MPs start their final debate on the health bill. |
| At some point today Andrew Mitchell, the international development secretary, is giving a speech to the Africa Investment Summit. | At some point today Andrew Mitchell, the international development secretary, is giving a speech to the Africa Investment Summit. |
| As usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm and another in the afternoon. | As usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm and another in the afternoon. |
| If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm on @AndrewSparrow. | If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm on @AndrewSparrow. |
| And if you're a hardcore fan, you can follow @gdnpoliticslive. It's an automated feed that tweets the start of every new post that I put on the blog. | And if you're a hardcore fan, you can follow @gdnpoliticslive. It's an automated feed that tweets the start of every new post that I put on the blog. |