First Person: Richard Younger-Ross MP

THE pageant of the Queen's Speech is spectacular. The ride in a carriage from Buckingham Palace, escorted by the Household Cavalry, their plumes blowing in the wind and the sun glinting off their silver breast plates, sets the scene for a big event.

The address by the Queen is formally called 'Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech' but of course it is not written by Her Majesty but by the Government. The speech this year was not a big event; it was a poor collection of half-thought-out ideas aimed at winning votes for the next election, rather than solving the nation's economic ills.

It is the worst type of political posturing; the real issue about the deficit is that the Government refuses to say what spending it will cut and what taxes it will raise to meet its own target to reduce the deficit. Passing a law halving the structural deficit in four years is a cynical distraction which will do nothing to increase market confidence in the Government.

The Financial Services Bill is to promote stability, efficiency and competition in financial markets, taking action to reduce the frequency and impact of systemic financial crises and promoting efficiency and competition. But the FSA already has massive powers which it does not use — more legislation so that the FSA can veto pay agreements which promote systemic risk is unnecessary and likely unworkable. This could be much better done within the FSA's existing powers. There is no way a more complex financial services bill will make it into law before the Prime Minister is forced to call an election. A simple measure to curb excessive bankers' bonuses would have been better.

Gordon Brown's plans for free long-term care— the Personal Care at Home Bill — seem to have been written on the back of a cigarette packet. The Prime Minister's initial plan to help 350,000 older people has already been downgraded and we still haven't been told how he intends to pay for it all. Hundreds of thousands of older people have been forced to sell their homes over the last decade, yet ministers have failed to commit to legislation that would put an end to this. The sad truth is that both Labour and the Tories are playing political football with long-term care rather than offering people the serious solutions we need.

The Children, Schools and Families Bill is the 12th Education Bill in as many years and fails to address the real problems in our education system. Instead of taking action to cut class sizes and reform the unfair funding, this Bill will further centralise our school system and place even more bureaucracy on headteachers. The idea of giving legal guarantees to parents could mean that schools face an avalanche of litigation, but does nothing to actually raise standards.

The DNA proposals in the Crime and Security Bill are completely unacceptable.

They have already had to be withdrawn once (in this year's bill) after defeat in the Lords. This Government does not understand the difference between innocence and guilt. I believe that all innocent people should be removed from the DNA database immediately.

The Bribery Bill, however, will bring the UK into line with international anti-bribery rules and will make it an offence to attempt to bribe foreign officials. This legislation is long overdue. It would have prevented the outrageous decision to halt the Serious Fraud Office investigation into allegations of corruption in BAE arms sales. Also the Cluster Munitions (Prohibitions) Bill to ban the use, development, production, acquisition, retention, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions in the UK and by UK armed forces is welcome, but I am not convinced it requires legislation to enforce the new rules.

The Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill does not address any of the big questions of our time. There is nothing in this Bill about electoral reform or reform of the Commons. When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister he called for a proper debate about constitutional reform. He has failed to hold that debate and this weak Bill is a wasted opportunity for real reform.

The Energy Bill to introduce a financial incentive, funded by electricity suppliers, to support up to four Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects, sounds good as energy firms across the board should be making investments for the future, not just looking to make a profit for their shareholders. I am concerned by a lack of measures to increase energy efficiency and a reluctance to introduce new emissions performance standards or specific legislative details for CCS.

The Flood and Water Management Bill is too little, too late. The Government has left out badly needed protection for people affected by flooding, such as planning measures to give local councils the power to stop building on flood plains.

At last the Child Poverty Bill puts into law the Government's commitment to end child poverty by 2020, but if Labour can't even meet its short-term child poverty targets in a period of relative prosperity, why should we believe that they will meet their 2020 targets when times are tough?

For this Bill to have any credibility, there needs to be commitment from all Government departments to end the scourge of child poverty.

We need to urgently reform the grossly unfair tax system, build thousands of new social homes and provide free child care for struggling families.

Over the last week all these have been debated and little more light has been shed, except it is going to be a very long election campaign.