What steps he plans to take to engage in dialogue with Parliament and the public in seeking their views on the contents of the Queen's Speech.

In setting out details of the content of the provisional list of Bills for the next parliamentary Session, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in his statement last Wednesday that he intended the Government's initial thinking, formerly private, to be the subject of widespread discussion and debate. Further and full information about the Bills is now available on the Cabinet Office website and in hard copy, from the Vote Office among other sources. We want to hear the views of all parliamentarians, members of the public and interest groups on what we have proposed and what they think should be changed.

May I say how pleased I am to ask the first question of the new team at the Ministry of Justice, and to welcome my right hon. Friend and his team to their new responsibilities? May I also say how much I welcome the news that there will be additional debate and dialogue about the Queen's Speech? Can my right hon. Friend tell us whether that additional debate and dialogue might lead to further proposals or expanded legislation to be included in the draft programme?

I thank my hon. Friend for her congratulations to me and to the other members of my team.

The whole purpose of consulting people is to take account of others' views. It is always a fact that the legislative programme changes—I know that, having been responsible for it as Leader of the House—but in the past the changes have principally been made in private. Now we want to hear from parliamentarians and members of the public and take account of what is said so that, with luck, the programme will be more in line with the overall opinion of parliamentarians and the public before we publish the final list—or Her Majesty does—in the Queen's Speech in November.

I congratulate the Lord Chancellor on his appointment. May I remind him that the public are well aware that many Acts of Parliament do not fulfil their intended purpose? Will he therefore continue to work with the authorities in both Houses to produce an effective system of post-legislative scrutiny, on which we were working beforehand and which really needs to be brought into play?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman—the Chairman of what will shortly become the Select Committee on Justice—for his congratulations, and look forward to working with his Committee in a constructive manner. I agree with him about post-legislative scrutiny. The Law Commission presented some very sensible proposals about it, and subsequently the right hon. Gentleman and other senior Select Committee Chairmen suggested ways in which they should be implemented. I am committed to doing that, as is my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House.

I add my congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman and his team, and wish them well in their important task.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give the House two assurances? First, will he assure us that the Queen's Speech will always take place, and that the Government have no desire to dispense with that important ceremonial occasion? Secondly, if Parliament is truly to be at the centre of the Government's plans, may we have an assurance that not every Bill will be timetabled?

I give an absolute assurance on the first point. I am the first Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain to sit in the House of Commons—[Hon. Members: "Hear, Hear!"] I think it is time to give a wider audience to the full name. However, I am already in training for my role at the other end of the Corridor in the state opening, which I am told in my incoming brief must continue. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made an absolute commitment that nothing in our efforts to provide for more consultation of the draft legislative programme will detract in any way from either the formality or the importance of the state opening of Parliament by Her Majesty the Queen which takes place at the beginning of each Session.

Now I have forgotten the hon. Gentleman's second question, and sadly it is not a Freudian slip. [Hon. Members: "Timetabling."] Yes, timetabling. Not every Bill is timetabled, although nowadays most Bills are. I know that that has been a matter of controversy. When I was Chairman of the Modernisation Committee we examined it in some detail, and, as a result of complaints from both sides of the House, although timetabling continues it is now much more relaxed. In most cases knives are not used for Report stages, and the time allocated for both Committee and Report is usually more than is used. However, I understand the importance of the matter, and we keep it under review.

I welcome the Lord High Chancellor to his newly expanded post, although since he is responsible for making the Executive more accountable, I hope that in future an hour will be provided for Justice questions.

The Prime Minister has said that the British people will be consulted on major decisions through citizens' juries. His spokesman has confirmed that the Government's review will consider whether service on such juries should be compulsory. Does the Secretary of State think that the public will welcome being forced to serve on new Labour's focus groups, and what will be the point of them if—as with public protests against hospital closures, or the 1.5 million people who signed the Downing street petition against road pricing—the Government simply ignore the jury's verdict?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind congratulations, and I congratulate him on becoming the shadow Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain and shadow Secretary of State for Justice, which covers an important policy area.

To begin on an ecumenical note, I regard even an hour of questions as too little for this Department, and for practice for the Opposition. I have already made strong recommendations on the matter to the Patronage Secretary and the Leader of the House as we recognise that half an hour is not long enough, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying that, too.

On the hon. Gentleman's next question, I have been reading the West Sussex County Times, which reports him as saying that, so far as he is concerned, there will be a reduction in party political slanging matches. I note the standard that he has set on that.

Citizens' juries do not, and cannot, work in the same way as juries in real courts; they have to be collaborative. Citizens' juries have been used in my constituency, and the idea behind them is to draw out people's views, not as focus groups, but through a collaborative, discursive approach. They often arrive at interesting conclusions, and the purpose in having them is to take account of what they say.