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Charles III unveils new Labour govt plan to turbocharge economy in King’s Speech
Britain’s first left-leaning government in 14 years announces its plans for the next 12 months on Wednesday as King Charles III officially opens the new session of parliament. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose Labour party won an overwhelming victory in the July 4 general election, has pledged immediate action to grow the economy and “create wealth for people up and down the country”.

Issued on: 17/07/2024 – 12:16

4 min
Members of the House of Lords take their seats ahead of the King’s Speech during the State Opening of Parliament in the chamber of the House of Lords at the Palace of Westminster, London on July 17, 2024.
Members of the House of Lords take their seats ahead of the King’s Speech during the State Opening of Parliament in the chamber of the House of Lords at the Palace of Westminster, London on July 17, 2024. © Aaron Chown, Reuters
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FRANCE 24
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FRANCE 24
Britain’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer outlines his Labour government’s priorities for the coming year on Wednesday when King Charles III officially opens the new session of Parliament.

This year’s State Opening of Parliament marks the first sitting of the House of Commons after the July 4 general election in which Starmer’s left-leaning Labour Party won a landslide victory, ending 14 years of Conservative Party rule.

Starmer ran on a promise to bring bold change at modest cost. The King’s Speech gives him a chance to show how he aims to reconcile those two aims.

Starmer said the measures announced in the King’s Speech to Parliament would “take the brakes off Britain” and “create wealth for people up and down the country” by spurring economic growth.

“The legislation set out at the King’s Speech will build on the momentum of our first days in office and make a difference to the lives of working people,” said Starmer, adding that the speech would be a “down payment on our plans for the next five years”, which focus on getting the UK’s stuttering economy growing strongly.

Wearing the diamond-studded Imperial State Crown and a long crimson robe, King Charles will deliver the proposals from a golden throne in the House of Lords upper chamber during a lavish ceremony.

But despite its name – and for all the ceremony’s royal trappings – the address is not written by the monarch but by the government, which uses it to detail the laws it proposes to make over the next 12 months.

The speech is expected to include more than 35 bills, including measures to enforce public spending rules and others to prevent a repeat of the utility bill price hikes that triggered the UK’s recent cost-of-living crisis.

‘This is a hungry party’
The legislation will also flesh out announcements already made, such as the launching of a fund to draw investment into the UK and of a publicly owned body tasked with boosting clean power by 2030.

Labour is also likely to announce the restoration of mandatory housebuilding targets, plans to renationalise Britain’s much-maligned rail services, as well as the opening of recruitment for a new border security command.

Starmer has scrapped the Conservatives’ plan to send people arriving in the UK across the English Channel on a one-way trip to Rwanda. The controversial scheme faced multiple legal challenges and cost the UK several hundred million pounds (dollars), without a single flight taking off.

A bill to boost workers’ rights, including a ban on zero-hour contracts, and strengthened protections for renters are also expected to be included.

“This is a hungry party,” former Labour minister Tony McNulty told AFP.

“They are chomping at the bit to show that they can get back to being what they see as the natural party of government.”

‘Very ambitious and very wide-ranging’
Starmer has promised to patch up the country’s aging infrastructure and frayed public services, but says he won’t raise personal taxes and insists change must be bound by “unbreakable fiscal rules”.

“It looks like it’s going to be very ambitious and very wide-ranging,” said Jill Rutter, senior research fellow at the Institute for Government think tank.

There will be moves to give more powers to local government, and a law to ensure all government budgets get advance independent scrutiny. Rutter called that the “anti- Liz Truss bill”, referring to the Conservative prime minister whose package of unfunded tax cuts in 2022 rocked the British economy and ended her brief term in office.

A law is expected on regulating the development of artificial intelligence, a possible break from the previous government’s light-touch approach to governing AI.

The government may also announce significant changes to the UK’s political system, including lowering the voting age from 18 to 16, one of Labour’s election promises.

It may even tackle an issue that has foxed previous governments: reforming the House of Lords. The unelected upper chamber of Parliament is packed with almost 800 members – largely lifetime political appointees, with a smattering of judges, bishops and hereditary aristocrats. Starmer has said he would like to remove the hereditary nobles and set a Lords retirement age of 80.

While much of Starmer’s agenda marks a break with the defeated Conservative government of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Starmer may revive Sunak’s plan to stop future generations from smoking by gradually raising the minimum age for buying tobacco.

Wednesday’s address is the second such speech delivered by Charles since the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in September 2022.

In keeping with the convention that the monarch is above politics, keen environmentalist King Charles remained expressionless during the last address in November when then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government announced new oil and gas licences.

“There’s probably much in this King’s Speech that he will favour rather than the other one he had to read out,” said McNulty, a British politics lecturer at Queen Mary University of London.

“But he’ll play it with a straight face. That’s the job.”

(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP and Reuters)