What does the Queen's Speech mean for Scotland?

The Queen’s robing room at Westminster, available to her before the Opening of Parliament, helpfully contains a copy of the death warrant issued to Charles I in 1649, as a reminder of what a bad Queen’s Speech could look like.

Charles himself was tried in Westminster Hall, found guilty, and executed outside the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall.

Afterwards Oliver Cromwell, one of his prosecutors, ruled until his own death, at which point his son took over. Sadly Richard Cromwell was forced to resign after losing the confidence of his army, forcing parliament to perform a U-turn and invite Charles II to come back as king.

But Charles was, perhaps understandably, angry that his father had been beheaded, and so demanded that Cromwell – along with the other 58 signatories to the death warrant – was executed in revenge.

The fact that Oliver Cromwell had been dead for about three years apparently posed no problem – they just dug up his corpse up from Westminster Abbey, put it on trial, and hanged it.

After that the body was taken down and decapitated, with the head placed on a 20-foot high spike above Westminster Hall.

Westminster is an institution steeped in a pretty strange history, and watching the Opening of Parliament, it was clear that much of it still hangs over the place.

First the Yeoman of the Guard search the cellars for any potential gunpowder plot, before parliament sends an MP as a hostage to Buckingham Palace, to ensure the safety of the monarch during her visit to the Commons.

And given what happened to Charles I, you can see why.

Of the 646 MPs to troop into the Westminster chamber for the occasion, 182 were new. Of those, 101 are men and 81 are women.

The extent of change for the SNP is well-known, with 50 new parliamentarians, but the Tories saw an even bigger influx of new faces, with 74 new MPs, while Labour also brought in 50.  The Labour/Cooperative group brought in three new members, while the Northern Irish Ulster Unionist Party welcomed two.

In fact the Lib Dems were the only party, taking their places ahead of the Queen’s arrival, in which every member had been there before.

The occasion is one of democratic pantomime – and it was surely not just the SNP intake who looked confused.

Some, surely, had misgivings about the role of the Queen in opening parliament while the rebukes aimed at the SNP over selfies in the chamber, fights over seating and their determination to use clapping as a means of indicating approval had already raised eyebrows in the settled, dusty halls of Westminster.

But in the event, the whole thing ran smoothly.

Protocol was followed and, despite concerns, the new SNP cohort behaved. In fact it was much more straightforward than anyone would have expected.

After all, academics and commentators had spent months debating procedure in the event of a hung parliament; with talk revolving around confidence-supply deals, minority governments and the dynamics of how Labour could work with a sizeable SNP cohort of Scottish nationalists.

In the end, though, Labour’s claim that ‘the biggest party goes on to form the government’ proved, in this instance at least, to be accurate. There were no fears that David Cameron’s choice of legislative programme would fall down after being uttered by the monarch.

The speech announced the planned introduction of 24 new Bills, 17 of which will apply to Scotland.

UK-wide opposition has centred around the Trades Unions Bill – creating a requirement for a strike vote to have a 50 per cent turnout – along with the Investigatory Powers Bill, dubbed the Snoopers’ Charter, which will give law enforcement agencies new powers to intercept communications.

But other parts were notable in their absence – namely, Tory plans to scrap the Human Rights Act.

The closest the speech came to the area was a promise to “bring forward proposals for a British Bill of Rights”. But there was no timetable, with the Government instead planning on putting the plan out to consultation.

Yet for the 56 SNP MPs, there will have been two Bills of particular interest.

The first is the Scotland Bill – presented as the legislative incarnation of the Smith negotiations. For the SNP MPs elected in the wake of the referendum, this was always going to be of special importance.

The measures, promised to make Holyrood ‘one of the most powerful devolved parliaments in the world’, will transfer new powers over taxation, meaning the parliament will gather around 40 per cent of the revenue it spends, whilst retaining the Barnett formula.

Beyond that, the Bill will enable the Scottish Parliament to set thresholds and rates of income tax on earnings in Scotland, with the first ten percentage points of standard rate VAT revenue raised in Scotland.

Air Passenger Duty and the Aggregates Levy will be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, alongside additional borrowing powers as part of a new fiscal framework.

Meanwhile new powers over welfare – worth around £2.5bn – will allow the Scottish Government to vary the frequency of Universal Credit payments, and set rules on benefits which impact upon carers, disabled people, and the elderly.

Scottish Secretary David Mundell argued that the new powers would be delivered “as quickly as we possibly can.”

Reacting, Alistair Morris, president of the Law Society of Scotland, said: “The recognition in these clauses that the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government are to become permanent aspects of the UK Constitution is a fulfilment in legal terms of the Smith recommendations.

“These proposed changes put into law the political intention of the parties who contributed to the Smith Commission process.”

But others were less impressed, with the SNP calling for a stronger package in the vote.

Even before the speech the Scottish Parliament’s Devolution (Further Powers) Committee had warned the draft legislation failed to meet either the “spirit or substance” of the Smith Agreement.

Releasing its report, which had cross-party backing, committee convener Bruce Crawford said: “The committee believes that the current proposals do not yet meet the challenge of fully translating the political agreement reached in the Smith Commission into legislation.

"For example, as we heard in our evidence taking, there is no power for the Scottish Parliament to top up reserved benefits despite that being one of the powers highlighted at the time of publication.

He added: “The committee is disappointed that the currently proposed legislation sells Smith short.”

But if the future of devolution drew controversy, it is likely it will be the future of the EU – and the prospect of another referendum – that will dominate the agenda.

In fact posturing over the question – ‘Should the UK remain a member of the EU?” – began long ago.

David Cameron’s position is that the UK’s relationship with Europe needs reform. In an effort to avoid a ‘Brexit’ – following a No vote in the referendum – he will continue to tour European capitals and win concessions.

Meanwhile Nicola Sturgeon will attempt to amend the legislation so a majority is required in each of the home nations for the vote to pass.

And though the Conservatives hold a majority in the Commons, they do not control the Lords. This means Cameron is likely to face strong opposition in the second chamber, particularly over the decision to limit the franchise to that of a normal general election, prohibiting 16 and 17-year-olds, as well as EU citizens living in the UK, from taking part.

But the bigger surprise came from Labour, with acting leader Harriet Harman announcing a change in position, with the party now backing the referendum bill, while still pledging to campaign to stay in.

Appearing on the Andrew Marr Show, Harman said: “There just does not seem to be the public appetite for us to man the barricades against a referendum that appears inevitably going to happen. We will vote for the bill and then get into the big questions for and against Europe.”

But while the EU referendum drew headlines, it may well be the spending plans pursued by the Conservative majority, rather than any specific legislative change unveiled by the Queen, that will dominate the Westminster chamber over the coming years.

And with £12bn in welfare cuts planned, changes could be extreme.

As Green MSP Alison Johnstone put it in her reaction to the speech: “The UK government is turning a blind eye to the urgent need to create a more equal society and a fairer economy.

“Policies already forcing many into poverty are set to continue apace, and I have serious concerns for those who will bear the brunt of further cutbacks.

“The Scottish Government must resist this continued assault, and ensure more devolution within Scotland so our communities have more control over their economies so we can create skilled jobs and protect public services.”

And so, like in the last Parliament, it seems inevitable that it will be the issue of how the Conservative majority goes about finding its £12bn in savings that will draw the most heat.

In fact, in making his maiden speech, Tommy Sheppard – SNP MP for Edinburgh East – gave some clues as to the dynamic between the new Scottish intake and the other parliamentarians.

Commentators had predicted the SNP would cause trouble, with the party already earning a rebuke from Speaker John Bercow after clapping in the chamber.

Sheppard, clearly aware of this, aimed to allay these fears.

He said: “Mr Speaker, you gave us a gentle rebuke yesterday for the applause that we gave in this chamber, and we take that with good grace. We know of course that it is not traditional practice in the chamber, but we did not know just how unacceptable it might be found. We will try to refrain from doing it again. It will take us time to learn the processes at work here; it will take us time to get our feet under the table.”

So the new grouping of MPs may have shown a willingness to adopt and adapt to Westminster’s arcane traditions, but, along with the sole Scottish Labour MP, Ian Murray, it is unlikely to be as amiable in other areas.

Sheppard said: “There are parts of my constituency where, despite public sector investment in infrastructure, aspiration has all but been extinguished, families are living on the margins, and despair and desperation hang over the place in a way that is almost palpable. The reason for that can be summed up in one simple word: poverty.

“We are talking about the working people to whom the Prime Minister referred.

"They are people who work harder than any of us have ever done; who go out and work long hours in insecure jobs for poor pay and who, at the end of the week, bring home enough just to feed their families and just to get by, but not enough to live a fulfilled and enjoyable life and to have happiness for themselves and their families.

He added: “When we hear about the £12 billion of cuts that are proposed in the welfare budget, we wait with bated breath to see where they might fall. I presume that the Government will not cut people’s pensions, which means that they will look at the very big areas of disability benefits and of tax credits.

"If they take money out of either of those areas, they will make a bad situation much worse in some areas of my constituency. They will push people to the margins and, at times, over the edge and they will complete their alienation from the society in which they live. I implore them not to do it.”

It was a strong speech delivered without notes, yet it seems unlikely to sway the Government from the programme it gave the Queen to announce.

Westminster may be a foreign land to Sheppard and his colleagues, but it is doubtful it will be the protocols, the histories or the traditions of the now Tory-run Westminster that will spark tensions between the new SNP MPs and the rest of the house.

Instead, as ever, it is likely to be how the words uttered by the monarch are enacted that matters.