Queen Opens British Parliament Session : Government: The program includes new openness, starting with revealing the name of secret service chief.

LONDON —  The new British Parliament opened Wednesday with Queen Elizabeth II, wearing her jewel-studded crown, presenting the legislative program of Prime Minister John Major’s reelected government.

Addressing the House of Lords, the queen said the government would enact further laws to curb labor unions, sell the coal industry, balance the budget and establish a national lottery for worthy causes.

In his own speech later, Major promised more openness in his government and took a step in that direction by acknowledging the existence of Britain’s secret service and naming its chief.

As Elizabeth read the 12-minute speech from her throne, Major stood next to Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, who lost the April 9 election to the Tories and announced that he would give up his party’s leadership in July.

Traffic was tied up in much of central London late Wednesday as the queen, wearing a cream-colored gown with a red train and accompanied by the scarlet-and-blue-uniformed Household Cavalry, rode to Parliament in a horse-drawn coach, a present from the Australian government.

Among the 16 measures that Major intends to introduce are actions to increase support for the national health service, promote the Welsh language, privatize parts of the railroad network, crack down on Irish nationalist terrorists and deal promptly with foreigners seeking asylum.

Major’s program would also attach the “highest importance” to national security and work to enlarge the 12-nation European Community.

In the audience for the “Queen’s Speech” were dozens of peers in their maroon and ermine robes with their wives wearing jeweled tiaras, while other women guests wore colorful hats of the style seen at English garden parties.

Later, in a speech to the House of Commons, Major promised to implement his program during the 18-month session of Parliament and also pledged a more open government.

As a move in that direction, Major admitted publicly for the first time in British history the existence of the Secret Intelligence Service, which is also known as MI-6 and is the equivalent of the CIA.

In another first-time disclosure, he identified the chief of MI-6, known in intelligence circles as “C,” as Sir Colin McColl.

McColl, who is 59, has been listed in Who’s Who only as a “counselor” in the Foreign Office. He is described as Oxford-educated and a former diplomat in Thailand, Vietnam and Poland.

The government has already acknowledged the existence of MI-5, the organization responsible for counterintelligence activities in Britain and Northern Ireland. In December, MI-5’s first woman director, Stella Rimington, 56, was appointed.

Labor leader Kinnock maintained that there was nothing new in the government’s program.

The word unemployment , Kinnock noted, did not appear in the Queen’s Speech.

“Unemployment and the fear of unemployment is hanging like a cloud over the confidence of countless numbers of individuals, of families and households,” he said.