It's an absolutely unique day in the parliamentary calendar.

The chamber of the House of Lords is at its most colourful.

The chamber itself is always packed.

It's glorious. It's a great atmosphere.

It makes one really proud to be a working peer or a peer of the realm.

The Lords are waiting very formally, you know, the whole of the procession,

there's absolute silence in the chamber.

And then what always jokingly referred to as the sort of noisy rabble come along from the Commons,

led by their speaker, Prime Minister, leader of the opposition coming in, Noah's Ark,

like two by two.

There are many traditions in the House of Commons, at which people cocker snook, which are perhaps

anachronistic.

The tradition of the state opening of Parliament is assuredly not one of them.

It's a kind of feeling of elation, because you've got the queen and you've got the trumpeters

and everybody wearing their splendid costumes, you've got the guards. And it's fantastic,

just as everybody sees it on the television. But it's much more than that. It is the beginning

of the parliamentary session. And then the queen reads, the Queen's speech, which is, of course,

the Government's speech. So it's a time when in the Queen's speech the Queen outlines the

government's programme for the session ahead. And it's a very, very important point in the political

calendar. Baroness Heyman, the Lord Speaker, the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Burko,

and Baroness Royal, the leader of the House of Lords,

with their impressions of a day which combines pageantry and politics, the state opening of Parliament.

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