About The King’s Speech
The 2024 King’s Speech took place on 17 July. Our team of specialist experts have analysed the speech and identified the most important things relevant to businesses.
A few things about the King’s Speech it’s worth bearing in mind are:
- it’s not a definitive list of the legislative agenda – not every bill that’s announced will necessarily make it through Parliament – similarly, the government may pass laws that are not included in the speech
- it covers the next session of Parliament, which will last about a year – it won’t contain everything that was in the Labour Party’s election manifesto
You can familiarise yourself with key points from Labour’s election manifesto in another rradar blog.
However, it’s fair to say this King’s Speech reflects what the new Labour government is prioritising and what laws the it thinks should be passed first.
Bills to be introduced
The King announced that the government will introduce bills to:
- ‘ensure that all significant tax and spending changes are subject to an independent assessment by the Office for Budget Responsibility’
- ‘ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights’
- enshrine in law the right to equal pay
- place requirements on companies that produce the strongest artificial intelligence (AI) models
- ‘give new powers to metro mayors and combined authorities’
- set up Great British Energy, headquartered in Scotland, to accelerate investment in renewable energy, such as offshore wind, and increase the UK’s energy independence
- support ‘substainable aviation fuel production’
- remove the VAT exemption for private school fees
- establish Skills England and reform the apprenticeship levy
- strengthen the powers of the water regulator
- give greater rights and protections to renters, including ending ‘no fault evictions’
- ‘progressively increase the age at which people can buy cigarettes and impose limits on the sale and marketing of vapes’
- ‘restrict advertising of junk food to children along with the sale of high caffeine energy drinks to children’
Analysis
There wasn’t a lot of detail in the speech, but that is to be expected. We will know more as specific bills are introduced. Having said that, the speech did set out clear themes.
Economic growth was a key theme throughout. We can expect more details on how the government will achieve that in the budget later this year.
Great British Railways will be established, bringing railways into public ownership (as promised in the Labour manifesto). Also, local leaders will be allowed to ‘take control of their local bus services’. Improvements in our transport systems will likely benefit employers – for example, it may open up access to new groups of potential employees.
rradar’s experts will be keeping a close eye on how the promise to end exploitative working practices plays out as this will likely have a big impact on employers. The Labour manifesto mentioned banning zero-hours contracts, but without full details of the bill we can’t assume that’s will happen.
Devolution was another big topic. Respect for existing structures of devolution was emphasised, and plans were set out to increase the powers of local government structures. A Council of Nations and Regions was proposed, which businesses may find they need to work with.
Housebuilding targets were expected, but not included in the speech. Instead, the speech said the government plans to reform planning procedures to ‘accelerate’ housebuilding. Perhaps the intention is that developing more powers will help local government build more homes?
Next steps
Our specialist experts will keep track of all legislation relevant to businesses as well as what’s in the next budget. We will share updates with our clients through emails, webinars, and articles and templates on rradarstation – our online knowledge library.
If you have access to our online services, please log in to your rradar account to search for the guidance you need, or contact us and speak to our team of specialist advisers.