The government has set out its legislative agenda for the new parliamentary session in the king’s speech. Our panel of experts reveals the key points.
Measures to ease high living costs
Jonquil Lowe, Visiting Academic, The Open University
Surveys suggest that the cost of living is still a major concern for UK households, with energy and food prices topping the list of worries. In response, some campaigners have called on the government to use the energy independence bill announced in the king’s speech to break the link between electricity and gas prices and volatile global gas prices. And they want it to provide support, especially for low-income households, to switch away from heating homes with fossil fuels.
Among other measures, the bill aims to ensure landlords upgrade their properties to reduce tenants’ energy bills. These kinds of measure need to be introduced urgently if they are to save households from heftier energy bills expected this winter.
Other cost-of-living reliefs are welcome, although their impact may be small. For example, a move to “strengthen ties with Europe” may ease food inflation by reducing red tape and border checks on some imported foods.
The leasehold and commonhold reform bill (carried over from the previous parliamentary session) will help owners of leasehold flats and houses by capping ground rents at £250 a year, and then reducing them to a negligible amount after 40 years. Meanwhile, the social housing renewal bill aims to increase the stock of affordable social homes.
A ‘Bresignation’ bill: options for UK-EU closer relationship remain limited
Miriam Sorace, Associate Professor in Comparative Politics, University of Reading
The government clearly recognises that to improve the UK’s economic and trade security, strengthening ties with the European Union is paramount. But public attitudes are still characterised by “bresignation” rather than wholehearted “bregret”.
While support for rejoining the EU sits at around 55%, this obscures deep polarisation and strong conditionality. Support drops sharply in rejoining scenarios that require the UK to relinquish its previous opt‑outs, notably euro adoption and participation in the Schengen agreement on free movement. These would probably be among the concessions demanded by the EU, given public opinion across member states. Support for rejoining the single market (48%) or the customs union (50%) lags behind support for rejoining the EU and remains highly polarised.
The least polarising and most popular option is a broadly defined “closer relationship” with the EU, supported by around 63% of the public and even attracting a sizable minority (40%) of Reform UK voters (and 56% of previous Leave voters). Yet this plea reflects a degree of wishful thinking. Given the UK’s and EU’s red lines, marginal adjustments to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement are the only real options short of the various rejoin alternatives.
The status quo is widely disliked (only 33% prefer the current UK-EU relationship), but there is no other politically viable alternative to tinkering around the edges. “Closer relations” is not a concrete policy: it’s the default expression of living under sub-optimal constrained choice. In other words: “bresignation”. The UK is likely to remain locked into a status quo of continual negotiation with the EU for the foreseeable future, unless public opinion shifts towards accepting the significant concessions required to initiate rejoining negotiations.
Tourist taxes – England plays catch-up
Rhys Ap Gwilym, Senior Lecturer in Economics at Bangor University’s Business School
England is set to become the 26th country in Europe to introduce a tourist tax. The overnight visitor levy bill, announced in the king’s speech, follows recent moves in Scotland and Wales allowing local authorities to tax overnight stays.
In Scotland, Edinburgh will lead the way, adding a 5% levy to accommodation bills from July 24 this year. In Wales, Cardiff intends to introduce charges from April 2027: £1.30 per person per night in hotels and Airbnbs, and 75 pence in campsites and hostels. Such measures have proved controversial, with strong opposition from parts of the tourism industry.
The UK government has framed this as “the first step in a new era of fiscal devolution in England”. In practice, it is a modest one. Revenues are likely to be small relative to existing local taxes and mayors may place greater weight on reforms to council tax caps or business rate retention.
That said, international evidence suggests well-designed tourist taxes can work. Even modest revenues can help fund destination management, ease pressures on local communities and improve the visitor experience. The detail of the legislation will ultimately determine whether England achieves these gains.
Plans to make it easier to align UK law with EU agreements
Simon Usherwood, Professor of Politics & International Studies, The Open University
For all the talk from Prime Minister Keir Starmer of putting the UK at “the heart of Europe”, the proposed European Partnership Bill is a relatively modest and technical move. It would give the government powers to make adjustments to domestic legislation to ensure it complies with agreements being made with the EU. This would apply to those currently under negotiation (like youth mobility, food and veterinary standards, or emissions trading) or those that might be considered in future.
This streamlines a process that would have been necessary in any case, and remains reliant on those EU deals actually being struck. So there’s nothing particularly remarkable about the content. However, the repeated mention of “where it benefits the national interest” highlights how the government is trying to package this as something more.
Decisions about when to align are necessarily attached to decisions to sign up to deals with the EU, not to whether to make the domestic adjustments (which international law would consider to be an obligation). Much like Starmer’s flowery rhetoric in his speech on Monday, the substance doesn’t really match up.
Nationalising steel for security – but debts could burden the taxpayer
Phil Tomlinson, Professor of Industrial Strategy and Regional Development, University of Bath
Plans to nationalise British Steel offer some comfort to UK steel workers in the form of preserving jobs and providing stability. More pertinently, the move represents a renewed willingness for the state to intervene in a strategically important industry facing financial difficulties, high energy costs, fierce global competition and the challenges of the green transition.
Steel is a critical element in UK sectors such as car manufacturing and defence, infrastructure projects like railways, and low-carbon technologies including wind turbines. Nationalisation should offer the UK a degree of security over steel supply in an increasingly uncertain geopolitical climate.
The risk is that British Steel continues to lose out in global markets and makes substantial losses. This will impose a huge financial burden on the UK taxpayer, at a time when public finances are tight. But public ownership could align steel production with the UK’s broader industrial strategy goals, such as infrastructure development and net-zero targets.
And state financing could allow for long-term investment in new electric steel furnaces and decarbonisation. In the future, the government could use other levers to ensure a market for British Steel, such as strategies which favour UK-sourced, low-carbon steel for green infrastructure projects.
Plans to clean up our rivers and seas could be watered down
Alex Ford, Professor of Biology, University of Portsmouth
Water bills are rising, public anger over sewage pollution has not abated, and the government has now set out a major overhaul of water regulation in England and Wales in the king’s speech.
The proposed water reform bill signals a shift in emphasis. Rather than focusing solely on water companies, the legislation aims to address pollution more broadly, including contributions from agriculture and industry. This is a welcome change. The bill also promises a more unified regulatory system to end the fragmented oversight that has characterised the sector for decades.
Yet despite the language of reform, the vision looks less like a radical reset and more like a reboot of privatisation. This focus will worry campaigners, as it suggests continuity with an economic model widely blamed for under-investment, rising bills and environmental harm.
Immigration bill to tighten rules on right to family life
Joelle Grogan, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, University College Dublin
The government says the new immigration and asylum bill will “tighten the application” of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Article 8 right to family life is inherently restricted, and both national courts and the European Court of Human Rights generally defer to government migration policy. So more detail of the bill in future will be welcome.
The background briefing notes state that Article 8 is stopping the removal of those living illegally in the UK, saying that 86% of people from January to September 2022 who raised rights-based applications in detention were released. However, this highlights the lack of data – both on how many removals have been stopped by the ECHR and its connection with the number of illegal arrivals. Research on available data on the ECHR and foreign national offenders indicate that numbers are very low.
The bill will define family life to ensure that it is limited to the core family unit of spouse, parents and children. But the European Court of Human Rights emphasises the “dependence” of one family member on another (for example by providing sole financial support) in migration cases as the trigger for Article 8. So by defining “family unit” without the condition of “dependence”, the government may unintentionally widen the definition rather than narrow it.
A vision for special educational needs
Paty Paliokosta, Associate Professor of Special and Inclusive Education, Kingston University
The king’s speech sets out an ambitious vision for special educational needs and disabilities through the proposed education for all bill, with a welcome emphasis on inclusion, early intervention and stronger mainstream provision. Encouraging inclusive practice alongside specialist expertise reflects growing evidence that non‑deficit approaches, which focus on amplifying strengths, benefit all learners'progress and wellbeing. These approaches include promoting and advocating for a neuroinclusive environment, building relationships and being aware of the impact of trauma.
However, serious questions remain about deliverability. The National Education Union has warned that these reforms cannot be delivered within current funding and workforce capacity, and that Sencos (school staff who lead on special educational needs), teachers and support staff are already facing unsustainable workload pressures. Notably, no explicit reference is made to the strategic leadership role of Sencos despite evidence that inclusive reform depends on empowered, well‑supported Senco leadership.
Given the financial pressures that schools face, and the plans to sustain and increase academisation, clear equity safeguards and funding will be required to make sure that they are able to properly prioritise fairness, accountability and consistent access to special educational needs support.