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Sir Keir Starmer has set out the 40 bills he claims will initiate “a decade of national renewal” as he launched a King’s Speech plan for economic growth featuring a big role for the state and a major upgrade to workers’ rights.
The new prime minister’s legislative plan — read out by King Charles at the state opening of parliament on Wednesday — is a pick-and-mix of traditional Labour state intervention coupled with fiscal discipline and radical planning reforms beloved of the Tory right.
Downing Street said GB Energy, a new state-run company, would be at the heart of Starmer’s industrial strategy and would “manage and operate” clean energy projects, as well as work alongside the private sector.
One of the first bills to be presented will complete the renationalisation of Britain’s rail operators, while local councils will be given greater powers to develop their own bus services.
“National renewal is not a quick fix,” Starmer told MPs as he promised to build a new economy where “workers and business are united in the cause of wealth creation”.
Some business leaders are nervous about the government’s big package of new employment rights and Rishi Sunak, former Conservative prime minister, warned they could make companies “less likely to invest, less likely to hire”.
Measures include banning “exploitative” zero-hours contracts, ending “fire and rehire” practices, improving access to parental leave and sick pay for new employees, and making flexible working the default from day one for all workers.
The government’s employment rights bill would also make it easier for trade unions to take strike action by removing Conservative legislation from the past decade that imposed what Labour calls “unnecessary restrictions on trade union activity”.
Unions welcomed the commitments and Downing Street said Starmer saw the reforms as vital in creating a “more productive workforce”.
But Stephen Phipson, chief executive of manufacturers’ trade body Make UK, said the government must work with industry to “avoid unintended consequences which could harm labour market flexibility where it currently works in the interests of both employer and employee”.
Starmer has vowed to be “unideological” in his approach and the planning reforms in the King’s Speech mirror some of Liz Truss’s deregulatory zeal from her short time as Conservative prime minister in 2022.
A planning and infrastructure bill would limit potential obstacles to new developments in designated areas. The government said it would “enable democratic engagement with how, not if, homes and infrastructure is built”.
“Now is the time to take the brakes off Britain,” Starmer said. “I’m determined to create wealth for people up and down the country.”
King Charles’s appearance at the state opening marks the start of a parliament that could run until 2029.
With Labour’s big House of Commons majority, Starmer hopes he can preside over a period of stability in Britain after the turmoil of the post-Brexit era.
The prime minister’s focus since his landslide election victory on July 4 has been on growth — including taking on “the blockers” of new housebuilding and infrastructure projects.
Some 15 bills are grouped under the heading “economic stability and growth”, and feature a draft measure on audit reform and corporate governance.
Other measures include devolved powers for English regions over economic development, plans to bring rail services under state control when franchises expire, and new legal responsibilities for the Office for Budget Responsibility, the fiscal watchdog.
Starmer will also pick up three bills that were introduced by Sunak but ran out of parliamentary time before the election: a phased ban on smoking, reforms to give renters more rights, and the creation of a new football regulator in England.
Sunak, the Conservatives’ interim leader, has said he will provide “effective opposition” but would not attempt to block measures for party political reasons.
“The Labour party promised no tax rises on working people and no plans for tax rises beyond what’s in their manifesto, in full knowledge of the public finances,” Sunak said.
“They can’t now claim that things are worse than they thought and renege on these pledges.”
Separately, the government launched a child poverty task force on Wednesday led by work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall and education secretary Bridget Phillipson after Labour pledged to deliver an “ambitious strategy” to reduce deprivation.
Starmer is set to face a rebellion by some Labour MPs over the two-child welfare benefit cap which restricts support to the first two children in most households.
Removing the cap would cost £3.4bn a year, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank.
The Scottish National party and several backbench Labour MPs plan to table an amendment to the King’s Speech calling for the cap to be lifted. A vote will take place at the discretion of Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker.
Additional reporting by Rafe Uddin, Delphine Strauss, Michael O’Dwyer and Anna Gross
