Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on July 17, 2024
By Andrew MacAskill
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s new Labour government set out its first package of proposed laws on Wednesday as Prime Minister Keir Starmer tries to deliver on his promise to rebuild the country.
The King’s Speech – given by the monarch but written by government ministers – opens the new session of parliament.
Below are some of the government’s key policy plans:
PLANNING REFORM
A Planning and Infrastructure Bill will seek to increase the number of homes built each year and simplify the process for approving infrastructure projects by speeding up the time it takes to get planning permission.
It will also reform compulsory purchase rules to ensure that money paid to landowners is “fair but not excessive”.
The government signalled the planning bill would restrict the ability of local people to block new developments saying there would be “democratic engagement with how, not if, homes and infrastructure are built”.
WORKERS’ RIGHTS
An Employment Rights Bill will ban companies imposing zero-hour contracts, outlaw fire and rehire tactics and strengthen workers’ rights by providing parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal to all workers.
The bill will also make it unlawful to sack a woman who has had a baby for six months after her return to work, except in specific circumstances, and make flexible working the default when people start jobs.
ECONOMIC SAFEGUARDS
A Budget Responsibility Bill will guarantee that any government making significant tax and spending changes would be subject to an independent forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the official budget watchdog.
This is intended to avoid a repeat of former prime minister Liz Truss’s 2022 mini-budget, a $50-billion package of unfunded tax cuts which was delivered without an independent assessment and triggering a meltdown in financial markets.
ILLEGAL MIGRATION
The government wants to pass a new border security bill that will give law enforcement agencies counter-terrorism powers to target the gangs who bring tens of thousands of people to Britain in small boats every year.
This will include stop and search powers for border officers and stronger penalties for advertising people smuggling. Labour scrapped the previous Conservative government’s plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda.
HOUSING REFORM
Renters will be able to challenge unreasonable rent increases. The Renters’ Rights Bill will abolish no fault evictions, end “rental bidding wars”, and make it illegal for landlords to discriminate against families with children or those receiving benefits.
FINANCIAL REGULATIONS
New financial bills will seek to encourage consolidation of smaller pension schemes, improve the process for rescuing failed banks by expanding the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, and give new powers to a new auditing regulator.
CLIMATE AND ENERGY
The government will pass legislation to set up the centrepiece of its green energy plans, GB Energy, backed by 8.3 billion pounds ($11 billion), to co-invest in leading technologies and help support capital-intensive projects.
RAILWAYS
It will bring rail franchises back under government control when private contracts expire. It will seek to boost east to west connectivity in northern England but will not relaunch a high-speed railway between Birmingham and Manchester.
CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS
As part of plans to reform parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords, it will remove the right of hereditary peers – passed down through family lines indefinitely and without election – to sit and vote. There are 92 hereditary peers out of more than 800 members.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
The new crime and policing bill will introduce a ban on so-called “ninja swords”, seek to crack down on shoplifting and target people involved in harassment and drinking alcohol in public.
CYBER SECURITY
A Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will update Britain’s regulation in a similar manner to the EU’s proposed Cyber Resilience Act, forcing companies to report incidents, including ransomware incidents, to give more data on cyber attacks.
DEVOLUTION
An English Devolution Bill will give mayors and other local leaders more say over economic decisions including on transport and jobs.
Power in Britain is centralised compared to other large economies with many funding decisions made in London. The government says further devolution will help boost productivity and bring about more balanced economic growth.
CONVERSION THERAPY
It plans to ban so-called conversion therapy, which targets lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people with the aim to change their sexual orientation or gender identity.
It said any ban must not cover legitimate psychological support to people exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity. The previous Conservative government had sought to introduce similar legislation.
SMOKING
The government plans to gradually phase out the sale of cigarettes as first announced by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Children born on or after Jan. 1, 2009 will never be able to legally buy cigarettes under a planned bill.
PRIVATE SCHOOLS AND NON-DOMS
Labour plans to start charging value-added tax on fee-paying schools and abolish “non-doms” status that lets wealthy, often foreign residents avoid tax on overseas income.
These are tax changes that are normally attached to a finance bill after a fiscal event such as the autumn statement later this year.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill and the UK bureau; Editing by Elizabeth Piper and Janet Lawrence)
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