King’s Speech: Labour agenda includes housebuilding and nationalising railways

King Charles gave his King’s Speech today, marking the opening of parliament as the first Labour government in 14 years is ushered in.

Amongst these was new legislation to get ‘Great British Energy’ off the ground, crack down on failing water companies and bring rail operators into public ownership.

However, the speech left some disappointed as measures they expected – or hoped – would be offered didn’t make the cut.

Here’s an overview of what was missing in the King’s Speech:

The Government has pledged to strengthen the UK’s cybersecurity and resilience, as well as take greater advantage of data to boost economic growth, through new Bills announced in the King’s Speech.

A reported fully-fledged AI Bill was not announced during the State Opening of Parliament, but the King’s Speech set out how the Government would “seek to establish the appropriate legislation to place requirements on those working to develop the most powerful artificial intelligence models”.

In response to the ever-increasing risk of cyber attacks, the new LabourGovernment said it would introduce the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, which would give greater power to regulators to push more firms to implement better cybersecurity defences.

• Hillsborough Law: This will introduce a “legal duty of candour” for public servants in an effort to tackle the “defensive culture” highlighted in the Hillsborough and Infected Blood inquiries.
• Armed Forces Commissioner Bill: This will establish a statutory commissioner for the armed forces to act as an “independent champion” for service personnel and their families and be fully empowered to investigate and highlight issues.
• Northern Ireland Legacy Legislation: The Government plans to repeal the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 and replace it with new legislation that changes the sections most vehemently opposed by victims and survivors and those found deficient by Northern Ireland’s High Court.
• House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill: This will take a first step to modernising the upper house of Parliament by removing the right of the almost 100 remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.
• Cyber Security and Resilience Bill: This aims to boost the country’s defences against cyber attacks that have affected the NHS and Ministry of Defence by strengthening regulators and increasing reporting requirements.
• Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Bill: This will enable the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the International Committee of the Red Cross to continue to operate fully in the UK.
• Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill: This will support efforts to increase the number of female bishops in the House of Lords by extending a provision from 2015 that prioritises female diocesan bishops to fill vacancies among the 21 House of Lords bishops aside from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester.
• Holocaust Memorial Bill: This will enable the Government to build the planned Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre next to the Houses of Parliament.

Sir Keir Starmer has been warned his new pensions bill will fail to tackle the crisis facing retirees, with the prime minister having ducked an increase in automatic enrolment.

In his first King’s Speech, the PM unveiled plans to support more than 15m people with private pensions and ensure they get better outcomes.

Sir Keir said the bill would boost the amount available for pension savers and help average earners save an additional £11,000 over the course of their career.

The pensions schemes bill included measures to prevent people losing track of pension pots, ensure workers are saving into pension schemes that deliver value for money and consolidate the defined benefit pensions market through so-called commercial superfunds.

Our political correspondent Archie Mitchell has the full story:

The speech outlined dozens of draft laws that ministers will later debate in parliament, here’s some of the proposed bills at a glance:

• Skills England Bill: This paves the way for the establishment of Skills England to assess the skills needed in the workforce and reform of the apprenticeship levy.
• Renters’ Rights Bill: This wide-ranging Bill’s measures include a ban on so-called no-fault evictions; empowering tenants to challenge rent increases and to request a pet; setting rules around the timeframes within which landlords must make homes safer for private renters, known as Awaab’s Law, and applying a “decent homes standard” to the sector.
• Football Governance Bill: This includes establishing an independent football regulator to address clubs’ financial sustainability and approve stadium sales or relocation; requiring clubs to get fan approval for changes to shirt colours; and preventing clubs from joining break-away leagues.
• Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill: This draft legislation will bolster leaseholders’ rights to extend their lease and buy their freehold; restrict the sale of new leasehold flats; regulate extortionate ground rents; and end the “fleecehold” system, whereby people who own freehold properties are locked into contracts to maintain the communal areas around them.
• Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill: This enshrines in law the full right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people and introduces mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting.
• Draft Conversion Practices Bill: This aims to ban practices that aim to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity by creating new offences to target acts not covered by existing law.
• Tobacco and Vapes Bill: This reintroduces Mr Sunak’s proposed smoking ban, gradually lifting the age at which people can buy cigarettes, and it will impose limits on selling and marketing vapes.
• Mental Health Bill: This will modernise the Mental Health Act to shift the balance of power from the system to the patient with the aim of putting service users at the centre of decisions about their own care.

Campaigners have said it is “high time” Martyn’s Law makes it onto the statute books as they welcomed plans to bring in the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill.

Labour vowed in its manifesto to bring in laws named after Manchester Arena bombing victim Martyn Hett amid a row over years of delays in introducing the legislation and it was announced in the King’s Speech to Parliament on Wednesday.

The proposed measures are in a bid to help protect venues against terror attacks. They would require UK venues and councils to have mandatory training and plans to prevent and protect against such attacks.

Mr Hett, 29, was one of 22 people murdered in a suicide bombing at the end of an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017.

Martyn’s mother, Figen Murray, has been campaigning for the Government to bring in the law and earlier this year walked 200 miles from Manchester to Downing Street to promote her cause.

Ms Murray said: “It’s fantastic to see Martyn’s Law in the King’s Speech. I’ve campaigned for this for years and it’s a huge relief to see it at the top of the agenda for the new Government.”

Three years after Boris Johnson outlined a “long-term strategy for buses in England” called Bus Back Better, the new Labour government is promising a Better Buses bill that has broadly similar aims, our Transport Correspondent Simon Calder reports.

The Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT), representing bus firms, welcomed the Kings Speech promising the bill.

The CPT chief executive, Graham Vidler, said “passengers want more bus services that are regular, fast, and punctual”.

But he warned: “No amount of regulatory change will deliver better services unless local, regional and national governments move swiftly to give buses priority on the road network, curb congestion, and persuade more people to switch away from private car journeys and towards public transport.

“Whoever controls bus networks, stable long-term investment in the sector will be critical. Immediate action must prevent a ‘cliff-edge’ return to fully commercial fares when the £2 fare cap ends in December – a scenario that will harm passengers and services.”

At present bus fares are capped at £2, saving as much as £10 on some routes.

The SNP criticised the King’s Speech as a “missed opportunity” that failed to deliver measures such as scrapping the two-child benefit cap.

SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn accused Sir Keir Starmer of failing his “first test in government” and branded the legislative program “timid”.

He said: “People in Scotland voted for clear and substantial change at Westminster, and the Labour Government was handed a huge mandate to deliver it, so it’s bitterly disappointing that they have thrown that opportunity away.”

Although he welcomed some of the small measures, he claimed Labour did not announce plans to eradicate child poverty and put an end to “Tory austerity”.

Mr Flynn added: “And with no plan to reverse the damage of Brexit or properly invest in green energy – Starmer is restricting the potential for strong growth in the economy, wages and living standards.

“For Scotland, there was no plan to deliver the maximum devolution that Labour promised during the independence referendum and, despite promising to abolish the House of Lords for more than a century, they are only planning to tinker around the edges.

“The SNP will work with the Labour Government, wherever possible, to deliver the best outcomes for Scotland – but where that change isn’t forthcoming we will hold them to account.”