Wednesday will be the first time in 14 years that Labour will set the government’s agenda.
So for Sir Keir Starmer’s new administrationThis moment is rich in symbolism and substance.
This is an opportunity for his government to exercise its power and show its dynamism.
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The King’s Speech The bill will be the “cornerstone” of Sir Keir’s oft-stated mission to “rebuild Britain”. Number 10 will introduce more than 35 bills to do so, with economic growth at the forefront of the government’s agenda.
With a 170-seat majority and in the midst of a public honeymoon, the new prime minister’s approval rating has jumped eight points since the election, according to YouGov, and he is now on the verge of a net positive popularity rating.
Watch coverage of the King’s Speech live on Sky News on Wednesday
This may be the best time Sir Keir has ever lived. He is at the height of his power and this King’s Speech will be watched closely because it will serve as a template for the scale of his ambitions in the early stages of his premiership, for a leader who says he wants to lead a “decade of renewal”.
And her team is reinvigorated. Speaking at a Labour Together event on Monday night, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said that a “day in government” was better than 14 years in opposition because it meant her party could finally get things done.
A senior official said Sir Keir and his team intended to run an “insurgent” administration, in which they had to prove to the public that the government could do a bit more for them, to put things right, and then look ahead to see what it could do next, rather than waiting for support on its record.
To that end, his team stresses that the bulk of the programme will be about growth, which may well be the case given that the new Labour government is counting on that, rather than further tax rises, to better fund struggling public services.
One government official told me: “This is going to seem really big, compared to any incoming government. We’ve had a week to think about it, but we’ve been working on it for much longer, and you couldn’t compare it to any other incoming government, it’s so meaty.”
“It will be a real moment of concentration, of defining missions and of implementation. There will be unfinished business and a sense of government of service.”
The package of bills will include the incorporation of budget rules and authorization for the Office for Budget Responsibility to independently publish forecasts of major budget events.
In her first speech as ChancellorMs Reeves articulated the policy story the government will seek to build over the next five years: “Repairing the foundations of our economy so we can rebuild Britain and make every part of our country better off.”
There will be a series of bills focused on “growth” – whether it’s building housing, decentralisation, improving transport and creating jobs.
They will also move forward with GB Energya new public energy investor that will take stakes in renewable and nuclear projects as part of Labour’s pledge to supply all electricity from renewable sources by the end of the decade.
On the planning side, Labour will legislate so that public bodies can use compulsory purchase powers to acquire land without needing individual approvals from a secretary of state.
A new “take back control” bill will establish a presumption of devolution with new powers for mayors over transport, skills, energy and planning, which Labour says will help rejuvenate high streets and generate growth across the country.
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On housing, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s proposed ban on no-fault evictions will also be brought forward as part of a move to reform the private rental sector in England.
Ms Reeves has already announced plans to reinstate mandatory local housing targets to secure more housebuilding, and Ms Rayner will begin the formal consultation process on the National Planning Policy Framework before the end of July – with a view to starting to implement the plans in the autumn, as Labour seeks to get moving.
The government also has plans to implement worker protection reforms, including a crackdown on zero-hour contracts and “fire and rehire” practices, as well as an AI bill that appears to strengthen legal safeguards around the most advanced technologies.
A new law will also be passed to place the water industry under “special measures”, which would see executives face bonus restrictions and potential criminal penalties if they fail to clean up Britain’s rivers and beaches.
Much of the King’s speech will reflect Sir Keir’s “first steps” for the government he campaigned for in the general election.
But his message of change is also nuanced by a call for patience from a new Labour government, which is using its first weeks in power to tout the state of the legacy – as George Osborne did in 2010 – in order to buy time.
You only have to look at what Ms Reeves said about the state of the public finances, caused largely by the pandemic and the energy price shock, or what the Prime Minister said about the state of some public services, with prisons in a “shocking” state and “much worse” than he had anticipated, to see the evidence that improvements will take time – perhaps the full five years of the first term.
But with a large majority and a party hungry for change, one can already see some of the pressures to come on this nascent government.
The SNP has announced plans to table an amendment to the King’s Speech calling on the government to remove the two-child benefit cap.
Labour’s Kim Johnson is also tabling an amendment, which former shadow chancellor John McDonnell will support.
A rebellion is growing over this, with many in the party agreeing with former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, who have publicly called on Sir Keir to abandon it.
The prime minister refused to do so, saying it was a “difficult” decision driven by tight public finances.
Mr McDonnell said he would consider amending the budget later this year if it did not include measures to remove the cap.
There is also internal concern within the party that the Labour Together and Labour First groups are sending messages to new MPs in 2024 with a slate aimed at taking control of the Parliamentary Labour Party and National Executive Committee positions.
A backbench source told me that the “fixing” is adding to resentment within a group of the party after the government dropped 31 shadow ministers, while one senior figure told me that MPs with large Sikh communities are beginning to raise the issue of the dropping of the two Sikh shadow ministers.
A government source played down the tensions, stressing that “the groups considered more supportive or skeptical of the leadership’s participation in internal elections are as old as the hills,” and said the party leadership did not organize such lists.
But with a majority of 172, Sir Keir will not worry too much about internal polls. His most urgent task is to show the public that his government is truly about change – and the King’s Speech will be the greatest symbol of that.
