Queen's Speech altered to focus on the economy

Ministers this week agreed a new list of Bills before Parliament to put more emphasis on pro-business measures and efforts to help the economy.

The chief executive of Sainsbury's last night warned that the 2.5 per cent VAT cut announced on Monday would be a damp squib.

Justin King told BBC1's Question Time: "If you walk down the high street today you'll see 20, 30, 50 per cent off, so really in that context it's a drop in the ocean."

He also warned of the logistical problems, saying small shops could feel no benefit. "This is not a simple thing," he said.

"And I think you'll find that a lot of smaller businesses find that the cost of doing this outweighs the benefit they are able to offer their customers."

Today the Cabinet was holding an away-day in Leeds, echoing a similar visit to Birmingham in September, designed to show that the Government is listening to all parts of Britain.

The changes to the Queen's Speech are likely to mean a lower priority for measures that were promised a few months ago, including reforms of the constitution and plans to overhaul the House of Lords and move towards state funding of political parties.

The draft Queen's Speech unveiled last spring trailed at least 18 Bills covering reforms to hospitals, schools, police and welfare. They included:

● Employment laws that could see working parents with older children get the right to demand to work part-time.

● An NHS Bill that will threaten poorly performing hospitals with closure.

● Injecting more than £200 million into housing market to buy unsold homes.

● An Education Bill to ensure that by 2011 no school underperforms.

● A police reform Bill, making chief constables accountable to a directly elected representative.

● Tests for immigrants to receive British citizenship to be tougher, with newcomers expected to learn English.

● An Employment Bill to force the long-term unemployed to retrain or face having their benefits cut.