King’s Speech key announcements – English devolution bill to football regulation
The new Labour government has announced its packed legislative agenda for the year ahead.
The announcements focus on improving living standards by driving economic growth, the first of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s five “missions for national renewal.”
Some heavy hitters include building more houses and infrastructure, nationalising the railways and giving greater powers to the UK fiscal watchdog over spending commitments to prevent a repeat of the Liz Truss mini-budget fiasco.
Budget Responsibility Bill
This will ensure that all significant tax and spending changes are subject to an independent assessment by the Office for Budget Responsibility, preventing ministers from making large unfunded spending commitments.
National Wealth Bill
This will establish a National Wealth Fund capitalised with £7.3bn to make investments across the country, with the aim to bring in £3 of private sector investment for every £1 the government invests.
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
This will “get Britain building” through planning reform, to accelerate the delivery of high-quality infrastructure and housing.
Measures will include changing compulsory purchase compensation rules to ensure that compensation paid to landowners is fair but not excessive where important infrastructure and affordable housing are being delivered, improving local planning decision making by modernising planning committees and increasing local planning authorities’ capacity.
Employment Rights Bill
This will legislate to introduce a new deal for working people in the first 100 days to ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights.
Measures will include: Banning “exploitative” zero-hour contracts, ending “Fire and Rehire” and “Fire and Replace”, making parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal available from day one on the job, strengthening Statutory Sick Pay, making flexible working the default, improving rights for new mothers and a new fair pay agreement for adult social care.
English Devolution Bill
Legislation to give new powers to metro mayors and combined authorities to support local growth plans that bring economic benefit to communities.
Better Buses Bill
A bill to remove the ban on publicly owned buses so local leaders can take control of their local bus services.
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill
A bill to deliver on Labour’s manifesto commitment to bring rail services back into public ownership, with the aim of improving passenger journeys and saving the taxpayer “millions of pounds”.
Rail Reform Bill
Legislation to improve the railways by bringing together the management of the network and the delivery of passenger services into a single public body – Great British Rail.
Great British Energy Bill
A bill to set up Great British Energy, a publicly owned clean power company headquartered in Scotland, which will help accelerate investment in renewable energy such as offshore wind. It will develop, own and operate assets with a capitalisation of £8.3bn of new money over the parliament.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (Revenue Support Mechanism) Bill
A bill to support sustainable aviation fuel production.
Water (Special Measures) Bill
A bill to strengthen the powers of the water regulator to ensure water bosses face personal criminal liability for lawbreaking and ban the payment of bonuses if environmental standards are not met.
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
A bill to establish a new Border Security Command which will have enhanced counter-terror powers to tackle organised immigration crime. The bill will also aim to end hotel use by clearing the asylum backlog and ensure fast-track returns for individuals coming from safe countries.
Children’s Wellbeing Bill
A bill to raise standards in education and promote children’s wellbeing, including measures to remove the exemption from VAT for private school fees, which will enable the funding of six and a half thousand new teachers.
This bill will also require free breakfast clubs in every primary school, limit the number of branded items of uniform and PE kits that a school can require and create a duty on local authorities to have and maintain Children Not in School registers.
Skills England Bill
Legislation to establish Skills England, which will bring together businesses, providers, unions, Mayoral Combined Authorities and national government to ensure we have the highly trained workforce that England needs. This will also cover measures to reform the apprenticeship levy.
Renters’ Rights Bill
Legislation to give greater rights and protections to renters, including fulfilling the Conservatives’ failed promise to end no fault evictions, giving tenants the right to request a pet, applying a Decent Homes Standard to ensure homes are safe and making it illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants in receipt of benefits or with children.
Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill
This will enact remaining Law Commission recommendations on reforming the leasehold system, including removing the threat of forfeiture and tackling unregulated and unaffordable ground rents. This will be part of steps to ultimately bring the leasehold system to an end, reinvigorating commonhold through a comprehensive new legal framework.
Mental Health Bill
Legislation to ensure mental health is given the same attention and focus as physical health, ensuring detention under the Mental Health Act only takes place when necessary by further limiting the extent to which people with a learning disability and/or autistic people can be detained.
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
This will follow through with the Conservatives’ abandoned promise to progressively increase the age at which people can buy cigarettes to phase out smoking for the next generation and impose limits on the sale and marketing of vapes.
Ministers will also legislate to restrict the advertising of junk food to children along with the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to children.
Draft Conversion Practices Bill
A draft bill to ban conversion practices which intend to change people’s sexual orientation or their gender identity.
Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill
This will enshrine in law the right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people.
Crime and Policing Bill
This will bring forward arrangements to get neighbourhood police and Police Community Support Officers back on the beat in local communities, give police greater powers to deal with anti-social behaviour and make drink spiking a specific offence.
Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill
This covers plans to halve violence against women and girls and strengthen support for victims of crime.
Terrorism (Protection of Premises)
This will require people responsible for certain premises and events to take steps to mitigate the impact of a terrorist attack and reduce harm in the event of a terrorist attack occurring
Armed Forces Commissioner Bill
A bill to establish a statutory Armed Forces Commissioner to act as a strong independent champion for Armed Forces and their families.
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill
This will include measures to modernise the constitution, including House of Lords reform to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords.
The government will also propose a modernisation committee of the House of Commons which will be tasked with driving up standards, improving work practices and reforming procedures.
Other:
Hillsborough Law
Legislation to introduce a duty of candour for public servants to prevent cover-ups after injustices like the Hillsborough tragedy and Post Office Horizon scandal.
Northern Ireland Legacy Legislation
Measures to begin the process of repealing and replacing the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, which offers conditional immunity from prosecution for Troubles-era offences. This is is strongly opposed by all parties in Northern Ireland and the High Court in Belfast has ruled elements of it are unlawful.
Football Governance Bill
A bill to establish an independent football regulator to ensure greater sustainability in the game and strengthen protections for fans.
Holocaust Memorial Bill
This will support the building of a national Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre next to the Houses of Parliament.
