Philip Webster, Political Editor of The Times, says the final Queen's Speech of the Blair era was a "weighty package" but held no major surprises:

"It was Tony Blair's last Queen's Speech and David Cameron's first and it's quite a weighty package - 29 Bills with others promised, and some of those promised, if they come, will be rather big ones.

"For example, that figure of 29 does not include a Terrorism Bill, although the chances of a massive terror Bill coming sometime next year are reasonably strong. John Reid is carrying on a review of counter-terrorism policy at the moment, working out his requirements, and it's not completed yet but it would be surprising if we did not have some kind of Bill this session.

"As it is there are five Home Office Bills listed, which very much dominate the speech. The theme of the speech is dealing with people's insecurity, with Bills covering issues such as crime and immigration. Then you've got the Climate Change Bill, seen as tackling people's insecurity about the climate and global warming, or the Pensions Bill, tackling people's insecurity about old age.

"There are not too many surprises. On reforming the House of Lords, there is a promise of 'proposals'. First of all we will have a White Paper, towards the end of this month or in December, then a vote in the Commons in January on the composition of a new House of Lords. Last time they rejected all the proposals but I think they'll come up with a 50-50 balance between elected members and nominated members, or maybe 60-40. That's my best guess.

"Whether those reforms get pushed through depends, like so much in this speech, on what the next prime minister wants to make his priority when he comes in.

"This is Mr Blair's final Queen's Speech and although Gordon Brown, who we expect to be the next leader, is fully signed up, there may well be things that he wants to give priority to when he takes over, say next June. If he is more ethusiastic than Blair about reforming the House of Lords, which we believe he is, then that might be given a push.

"The other big question is whether there will be an attempt to raise from the 28 days the maximum amount of time that terror suspects can be held. Mr Brown and others have said that they would back an attempt to raise that figure, but until they have a terror Bill, there isn't really any vehicle for it.

"There is no major public service legislation, but there's welfare reform, reforming Incapacity Benefit, which is not amazingly controversial with Labour MPs, funnily enough.

"The other problem area is climate change, where lots of Labour MPs are signalling in advance that they are worried about the Government's refusal to set annual targets for reducing emissions. And it's almost certain that there will be an attempt to write that into the Climate Change Bill, which we won't see for a couple of months yet.

"We know already that the Bill will set in law the aim to cut greenhouse gases by 60 per cent by 2050, and create a carbon committee to monitor that, but the argument is how do they do that. The Government says that annual targets are ridiculous - they can be thrown off just by a change in the weather.

"So it's a Queen's Speech that deals with the big issues and it was unique in that it was introduced by a Prime Minister who won't be around to introduce the next one."

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