CONTROVERSIAL plans to force lone parents to prepare for work when their child is still in nappies will form the centrepiece of today’s Queen’s Speech.

The move will trigger a confrontation with Labour MPs and child poverty groups, who have already attacked moves to force single mothers of seven-year-olds to return to work, particularly when jobs are scarce.

The list of Bills will also include a crackdown on “all you can drink” pub promotions, measures to require local councils and NHS services to respond to petitions, and to put directly-elected representatives on police authorities.

But the legislation for the new parliamentary session has been hurriedly rewritten to make it “recession-proof”, by stripping out anything that could further damage struggling businesses.

As a result, plans to ban cigarette displays in shops are thought to have been dropped and a delay ordered before town halls can levy a supplementary business rate on local firms.

Much of the attention on the speech will focus on another welfare crackdown, which will force virtually all benefit claimants to make themselves available for work.

The changes were signalled on Monday, when the Government welcomed a study recommending the jobless do a “nine-to-five day” looking for work – or face punishments, including unpaid community work such as digging gardens.

The ultimate sanction, for the hardcore unemployed who refuse to turn up to meetings and interviews, would be the loss of four weeks Jobseekers Allowance.

The shake-up, modelled on Denmark and Holland, will require lone parents of children as young as one-year-old to make themselves “work ready”, by tackling problems such as debt, poor health and lack of skills, or risk losing benefits, The Welfare Reform Bill will also include plans to strip help from benefit cheats after a single offence, and to force claimants to undergo lie detector tests.

Insisting the measures were part of a wider commitment to fair rules for all, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: “As Government takes action, we expect people to play their part in return, with clear consequences for those who do not.”

Today’s speech will also include a Policing Bill that will outlaw irresponsible promotions such as “all you can drink for £10”, “women drink free” and games offering alcohol as prizes.

All shops, pubs, bars and nightclubs will be made to sign up to a mandatory code on selling alcohol responsibly.

Any landlord or shopkeeper who breaches it faces a £20,000 fine, or six months’ jail.

However, ministers have backed away from banning “happy hours” and from imposing a minimum price for alcohol.