Alice Pugh and Rebecca Riley discuss the key takeaways from the King’s Speech and explain what the proposed legislative agenda will mean for place.
This week the King’s Speech marked the start of the parliamentary year, it sets out the new Labour government’s priorities over the parliamentary year following the general election. The speech itself is written by the government, but the Monarch delivers the speech.
This legislative agenda is heavily focused on boosting economic growth and sets out some bold ambitions to achieve this, however, the success in delivering economic reform will largely depend on careful implementation. Though it is noted that the new legislation announced requires tax and spending plans to be scrutinised by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which will underpin the new government’s economic credibility with the financial markets. The government is establishing that stability will be the cornerstone of its economic policy, aiming to avoid the significant instability of recent years.
There are significant proposals on infrastructure which have significant place implications. The legislation around trains could not only lead to lower prices in the future but could lead to further progress towards carbon targets. The renationalisation of the trains should not simply repeat the previous nationalised rail service programme but should take a more holistic approach for both passenger and freight services. Alongside this, the long-term rail infrastructure and capacity investment will need to be made by the government to improve service. It will also allow for a greater focus on place needs and rail demands, the potential to create services that better meet growth needs or derisk investment in new infrastructure.
Getting Britain Building was another important element affecting place, which is the government’s infrastructure legislation. Whilst new homes are needed, alongside improvements in the sustainability of homes, there are concerns around this legislation. The government needs to ensure that there are enough skilled workers available to commit to building these homes, whilst also ensuring that building homes at a rapid pace does not lead to higher inflation. The workers also need to be in the right places at the right time for the investment. There are also issues about where homes are built, tackling local opposition to house building can slow down the investment. The risks associated with this could be laid at Local Authority doors.
In terms of devolution, the government will standardise the devolution framework to give local leaders greater powers over the levers of local growth and streamline the ability for the establishment of Combined Authorities in the English Devolution Deal. There appears to be an important shift from the flexible arrangements in the 2016 Act around devolution to a standard devolution framework in legislation. This will bring much-needed guidance and order to the process and what can be negotiated. It will hopefully give clarity to local areas on the benefits and approaches they can take and overcome some of the barriers to devolution.
Overall, this King’s Speech is heavily focused towards economic growth, with a significant focus on the improvement of infrastructure in the UK. However, there are concerns about the scale of reform that will be required to make a substantial change given there are significant structural long-term issues with regard to infrastructure. Greater devolution also hints that the government will be pursuing place-based economic development, through handing greater levers, powers, and responsibilities over to local leaders, who are experts in place. This will require a rapid scale-up of skills and capacity in local areas and greater partnership working to enable to support the growth agenda.
Details of the can be found here 39 bills that the government intends to pass in the next parliamentary session, the main bills include:
Transport
- The Passenger Railway Services Bill will allow the government to gradually renationalise passenger rail services, as existing contracts expire.
- To support this the Railways Bill will see a new body established to oversee tracks and trains.
- The Better Buses Bill will enable local leaders the opportunity and responsibility to take over the running of bus services.
- The government will also bring new powers to build new rail infrastructure in the north of England by reestablishing the northern leg of HS2, in the High-Speed Rail Bill.
Housing and Planning
- The Planning and Infrastructure Bill aims to streamline the process for approving critical infrastructure, alongside changing the rules on the compulsory purchase of land.
- The government will ban no-fault evictions in the Renters Rights Bill and extend a series of building safety rules for social tenants, known as Awaab’s Law, to private renters.
Energy and Infrastructure
- The Great British Energy Bill will see a new state-owned investment and generation company created, GB Energy.
- A new investment fund to invest £7.3bn in infrastructure and green industry over the next five years, will be established in the National Wealth Fund Bill.
- The Water (Special Measures) Bill will make the bosses of private water companies personally liable for lawbreaking, whilst giving the water regulator new powers to ban bonuses.
Employment
- The Employment Rights bill will end a number of exploitative practices, such as zero-hour contracts and ‘fire and rehire/ replace’, alongside strengthening some rights such as statutory sick pay.
This blog was written by Alice Pugh, Policy and Data Analyst, and Rebecca Riley, Professor for Enterprise, Engagement and Impact and Co-director, City-REDI / WMREDI, University of Birmingham.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this analysis post are those of the authors and not necessarily those of City-REDI / WMREDI or the University of Birmingham.