MORE cuts and fewer rights are at the heart of the first Tory-only Queen’s Speech in decades.

Alongside the well-trailed scrapping of the Human Rights Act, the extension of right-to-buy and the referendum on EU, the speech is also expected to include plans to introduce a ‘’deport first, appeal later’’ immigration bill.

The Queen will detail more of the Tory benefit cuts, and a law making it harder for trade unions to organise strikes.

The speech will also allow Scots a glimpse at some of the first detail of the Scotland Bill. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will be looking closely to make sure it goes beyond the draft clauses published in January and is closer to the recommendations made by the Smith Commission.

Speaking in Edinburgh yesterday morning after the launch of the Scottish Business Pledge, the First Minister said: “I hope to see firstly that the Smith Commission will be delivered in full. When the draft clauses were published early in the year, we were very critical of the way in which they fell short of Smith so, firstly, we will want to see in the Bill that is published later this week Smith delivered in full.

“Secondly, we will continue to argue for powers that go beyond Smith. We have been talking here today about what we could do with greater powers over business taxes, employment law, minimum wage, more powers over welfare – these are essential to growing our economy and lifting people out of poverty, and we will continue to make that case.

“The test of the Bill will be does it fully deliver Smith? But when I met with the Prime Minister just over a week ago now I made it very clear, and he agreed to look at, the proposals we will put forward about how we go beyond Smith. So, firstly, the Bill has to deliver on Smith but then we need to have that dialogue about how we go beyond it.”

Asked if the EU referendum issue was more important, the First Minister replied: “All of these things are important, and they are all interconnected in many ways because at the heart of all of these things is the ability we have in Scotland to grow our economy and lift people out of property.

“I think it would be folly for the UK to come out of the European Union. We should argue for reform from within but we shouldn’t come out. I think it would be indefensible for Scotland to be taken out against our will. That’s why SNP MPs at Westminster will seek to insert a double majority provision in the legislation to deliver a referendum, which would mean that the UK could only come out if Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland all vote to come out. We will be arguing the positive case for the UK to stay in during that referendum campaign.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: “David Cameron must put more powers for Scotland agreed by the five-party Smith Commission front and centre of his Queen’s Speech today.

“It must be delivered in full. No ifs, no buts.”

Labour Scottish MP Ian Murray said that the Tories needed to come clean on the scale of the cuts.

He said: “Just yesterday IFS analysis laid bare the true scale of the brutal Tory cuts planned in this parliament. The £12 billion per year of further cuts to welfare, almost entirely from working-age benefits, will make the lives of those who work, and who already struggle to get by, even harder. David Cameron and the Tories may claim that they look out for working people, but these cuts will fall most heavily on the working poor and will push even more children into poverty.”

The Prime Minister said: “We have a mandate from the British people, a clear manifesto and the instruction to deliver. And we will not waste a single moment in getting on with the task.”

Although it is the pomp, circumstance, flummery and nonsense of the State Opening that makes the TV, it is the debate afterwards that will dominate.

This will the first Queen’s Speech where Cameron doesn’t have to run policy past the LibDems. It will see Labour attempting to provide opposition while in the middle of a leadership contest, and it will see Nick Clegg making his first major speech since his party were gubbed in the General Election earlier this month.

It will also mark the first Queen’s Speech since the SNP became the third-largest party in Westminster.

SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson said that today would be the day that the SNP proved that they were “real opposition” at Westminster:

“The Tory government’s priority is ending human rights and we will work across party lines and with colleagues in the Scottish Parliament to stop them scrapping the Human Rights Act.”

He added: “Since the election, we have seen Labour U-turn to back the Tories on a European referendum – and support their ridiculous and discriminatory position of allowing some but not all EU nationals to vote.”