Nice summary on what losing a Queen's Speech vote means in practical terms from the Guardian live blog today:
Before the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was passed in 2011, the Queen’s speech vote counted as a confidence matter and a government that lost was expected to resign. That is what happened in 1886, 1892 and 1924. Those votes all took place after general elections, and on each occasion a new administration took power without another election being called.
The last election was more than two years ago and, if the FTPA was not on the statute book, you would expect Boris Johnson to respond to a defeat on the Queen’s speech by calling an election.
But, of course, that is not an option for him. Under the FTPA a government motion for an early election would need the support of two thirds of MPs in the Commons for it to have force, and Johnson has failed twice to get a motion passed meeting that threshold.
If Johnson does lose the vote, he might try again to force an early election. He could table a confidence motion in his own government (although it is hard to see what this would achieve), or he could table a no confidence motion and ask his MPs to abstain (because if a no confidence motion gets passed, and no other administration takes over within 14 days, an election has to happen under the FTPA). As well as being risky, this would be seen as an abuse of process and, although theoretically possible, it is possible that it could be disallowed by the Speaker.
But Johnson could also just ignore a vote against the Queen’s speech. A defeat like that would not stop him governing; it would not be like a vote against the budget, which would stop the government raising taxes. At the end of the Queen’s speech all MPs are actually voting on is a motion saying they should send a humble address to the Queen thanking her for attending parliament. If Johnson loses the vote, all that technically happens is that the Queen does not get the note. One less thing to read. She probably wouldn’t mind ...
UPDATE: David Howarth, a Cambridge law professor and former Lib Dem MP, has been in touch to say losing a vote on the Queen’s speech does have at least one practical effect. He explains:
You might be interested to know that there would be a practical consequence for the government of losing the motion on the address completely (as opposed to losing on an amendment to it).
Standing order 51 says that the government can’t move a ways and means resolution without notice unless the address has been agreed to. What this means is that if the government fails to get the address through the house, it can’t bring in emergency tax changes, e.g. to beat avoidance schemes, without letting the world know first, which might be very inconvenient in current circumstances.
Perhaps more important, that standing order could be amended by the house to say that the government can’t bring in a budget at all until the address has been passed, something it might do if Boris Johnson loses a vote on the Queen’s speech and then refuses to follow the convention that prime ministers defeated on the Queen’s speech should resign.