Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth

Britain's Queen Elizabeth has had her annual parliamentary speech delayed by 24 hours.

The monarch's address to set out the Government's programme for the new parliamentary session will take place on Wednesday June 4, a day later than planned due to a planned G7 summit in Brussels, Belgium.

Leader of the Commons Andrew Lansley said in a statement: "The date will better facilitate arrangements for the ceremony and other events that week including the now planned G7 summit in Brussels, Belgium."

The speech was believed to have already been delayed once, having originally been pencilled in for May.

The day after making her address, the queen and her husband Prince Philip will travel to France to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

The G7 summit was called last month following the abandonment of a planned G8 summit in Russia.

Leaders from the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan will meet without Russia for the first time since they joined the group in 1998 in protest over the annexation of Crimea, saying the country's actions were

not consistent with the "shared beliefs and shared responsibilities" of the G8.

A joint statement added: "We remain ready to intensify actions including co-ordinated sectoral sanctions that will have an increasingly significant impact on the Russian economy, if Russia continues to escalate this situation."