In the first State Opening of Parliament under the new UK Government, the King’s Speech unveiled 39 bills and draft bills which will support the delivery of the Government’s first steps and missions to ‘rebuild Britain’.
The package of bills will focus on growing the economy through better transport, more jobs and turbocharging building of houses and infrastructure – helping to make every part of the country better off.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said:“Now is the time to take the brakes off Britain. For too long, people have been held back, their paths determined by where they came from - not their talents and hard work.
“Today’s new laws will take back control and lay the foundations of real change that this country is crying out for.”
Skills
The Government has pledged to establish a new body called Skills England, which will equip “learners with the skills required to thrive in life, businesses with the trained workforce they need to succeed, and local areas with access to the right skills to spur economic growth”.
The aim is to bring together businesses, providers and unions to enhance skills training and tackle skills shortages in industries such as manufacturing.
According to Number 10, the number of vacancies relating to skills shortages in England doubled between 2017 and 2022, from 226,500 to 531,200. Skills England will help to address these gaps on both a national and regional level.
EngineeringUK Head of Policy and Public Affairs, Beatrice Barleon, commented: “We look forward to working with Skills England and other stakeholders on developing a comprehensive workforce and training plan for the engineering and technology, to ensure that the sector, and indeed the entire economy, can thrive with a highly trained and adaptable workforce.”
This, Barleon said, will help to create new job opportunities in STEM and equip young people with the skills needed to tackle the climate challenge.
Plans are also in motion to reform the existing Apprenticeship Levy, to offer a greater range of upskilling and training opportunities. This will help to combat the decline in people undertaking apprenticeships.
For this to be successful, Barleon of EngineeringUK stressed that the focus must be on “enabling more young people to gain access to entry-level apprenticeships”.
“A greater pre-apprenticeship offer will help, but the funding system must also lead to more opportunities for young people to access Level 2 and 3 apprenticeships,” Barleon continued. “We look forward to working with the Government to achieve this and deliver on their ‘youth guarantee’.”
Jamie Cater, Senior Policy Manager at Make UK, also praised the decision: “Far from increasing Apprenticeship numbers the Apprenticeship Levy has led to their demise.
“Employers will be relieved to finally hear the words ‘reform the apprenticeship levy’ and we can begin to reverse the disastrous trends we have seen over the past seven years.
Cater further stressed that addressing the decline in apprenticeships should be achieved by “addressing the funding challenges for training providers that have made it so hard for businesses to access the right apprenticeships for them”.
Transport
New legislation will be introduced to create a simplified rail system by bringing rail services into public ownership once their contracts expire or if operators fail to deliver on their commitments. This approach will avoid the burden falling on taxpayers to cough up for compensation to operators for taking services into public ownership.
The Government says that transferring operations to the public sector will save the taxpayer millions of pounds currently paid out in fees to private operators each year. The move is designed to end the fragmentation of British railways, establishing a more efficient and reliable rail service for passengers.
The Speech also outlined plans to establish a new public body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will be focused on improving services and creating better value for money for passengers.
With Great British Railways, the fares and ticketing system is expected to see simplified fares, discounts, and ticket types.
Once established, the new body will also ensure that ticketing innovations like automatic compensation, digital pay-as-you-go, and digital season ticketing are rolled out across the whole network.
The King’s Speech also featured a Better Buses Bill to deliver the Government’s manifesto commitment to reform the bus system by delivering new powers for local leaders to franchise local bus services and to lift the restriction on new publicly owned bus operators.
This will help bring an end to the postcode lottery of bus services and will “give local communities throughout England the power to take back control of their bus services”, the Government says. It will mean local leaders can decide to introduce better bus networks, at pace, which reflect the needs of the local communities that rely on them.
Building
According to the Government, getting Britain to build more housing and infrastructure, including through planning reform, will also be central to its plans to strengthen economic growth.
As part of plans to build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill seeks to speed up and streamline the planning process, as well as accelerate the delivery of major infrastructure projects.
Sewage
The new Water (Special Measures) Bill will be put in place to help fulfil Labour’s manifesto pledge to hold water companies accountable for polluting rivers, lakes and seas.
The proposed measures will impose personal criminal liability for executives who break the law, empowering water regulators to prohibit bonus payments, and implementing a new code of conduct for water companies.
Water companies will face severe fines for non-compliance.
Empowering local communities
As part of the Government’s plans to empower local leaders to deliver change for their communities, the King’s Speech also unveiled the English Devolution Bill. This seeks to deliver the Government’s manifesto commitment to transfer power away from Westminster and into local communities. The aim is to recognise the vital role local leaders play in supporting growth by establishing local growth plans that bring economic benefit to communities and households across the country.
Clean energy and the path to zero
Recognising “the urgency of the global climate challenge and the new job opportunities that can come from leading the development of the technologies of the future”, the Government also unveiled plans to establish Great British Energy. Based in Scotland, this publicly owned clean power company will help to boost energy independence, as well as create jobs across the UK.
£8.3 billion will be invested in Great British Energy, presenting a significant cut of Labour’s net zero commitments, having slashed its previous £28 billion investment in half earlier this year.
Aquaterra Energy CEO George Morrison said: "The £8.3 billion investment in GB Energy is a pivotal step toward reinforcing the UK’s leadership in the energy transition.
However, Morrison urged the need for “sustained investment and an innovative supply chain” to ensure renewable energy projects are delivered at the pace needed to achieve 2030 targets.
Meanwhile, Glynn Williams, UK Managing Director of Grundfos, urged the need to recognise the importance not just of investing in the future of clean power, but also improving the energy efficiency of current operations. “While the beneficial effects of the clean power scheme are apparent, the Government must simultaneously recognise the low-hanging fruit solutions already within reach to help cut energy bills fast, by focusing on providing energy efficiency,” Williams noted.
“Lack of awareness around how to optimise heating systems, such as through hydraulic balancing or replacement of old circulator pumps, costs households and businesses a combined £3.1 billion each year. In the coming months, we therefore hope to see regulation and funding that goes beyond insulation-based improvements.”
In summary
Overall, the plans outlined in the King’s Speech have been largely welcomed by the engineering and manufacturing community. Going forward, the Government will need to work with industry to ensure that its commitments are delivered efficiently and effectively, to ensure long-term growth for both the sector and the wider economy.