Time to reflect

The Queen's Speech has set out the Government's programme for the new parliamentary session. A time for looking forward but also for reflection on what has been.

The moment when Conservatives and Lib Dems came together to form the Coalition Government seems an age away and a lot has happened since. And whilst I accept that the Government has not been perfect (none ever are) it has achieved much.

The most important success is to have provided stable government at a time of great economic uncertainty. There are those who have argued that coalition should have been avoided, that a minority government would have been preferable. I doubt this.

Anything other than a coalition would have resulted in political instability and another general election not long after the last and if this had once again thrown up an indecisive result what then?

From this political stability has come the opportunity to stabilise the economy. By that I do not mean to remove all difficulties (not least the pressure on living standards and unemployment) but to convince the markets that we have a credible plan for returning our national finances from near ruin to sanity.

This is a powerful achievement — it was by no means certain that we could pull it off , just look at Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain. And our ability to steady markets is not just some abstract notion, it is key to keeping interest rates low for businesses, those with mortgages and for keeping our repayments on our more than a trillion pound debt mountain at something less than heart-stopping.

There have of course been bumps in the political road — there will be more ahead — but this achievement is one that should never be forgotten.