King’s Speech: Government unveils 37 new bills for year ahead – full list

King Charles has unveiled the government’s legislative agenda for the year ahead, with 37 new bills announced.

The speech focused on strengthening the nation’s economic, energy and national security, as well as strengthening public services and ending the “opportunity crisis”.

It comes amid a growing rift at the heart of the government, with reports that Health Secretary Wes Streeting will resign from the Cabinet tomorrow in order to trigger a leadership contest.

Full list of bills included in King’s Speech:

Strengthening economic security:

• Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill
  • Will nationalise the steel industry and bring British Steel under public ownership. It will establish a public interest test that must be met for this transfer of ownership and introduce compensation powers to obtain independently assessed compensation. 
• Northern Powerhouse Rail Bill
  • Will invest £45 billion to deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail. Will include upgrades to lines east of the Pennines for delivery in the 2030s; bring forward a new route between Liverpool and Manchester via Warrington and Manchester Airport; and deliver better cross-Pennine links in addition to the Transpennine Route Upgrade. 
• European Partnership Bill
  • Will give powers to fulfil treaty obligations in UK EU agreements when it serves the UK national interest and the power to extend this into any future treaties. 
• Small Business Protections (Late Payments) Bill
  • Will impose maximum payment terms of 60 days, enforce mandatory interest for late payments and introduce a time limit for raising invoice disputes. It will require boards or audit committees of persistently late-paying large companies to publish commentary on poor payment performance and give the Small Business Commissioner new powers to investigate, adjudicate and fine businesses that persistently fail to comply.
• Clean Water Bill
  • Introduce a new Water Ombudsman to ensure complaints are taken seriously and resolved quickly and effectively. It will combine powers from Ofwat, the Drinking Water Inspectorate, the Environment Agency and Natural England under a new integrated water regulator. The bill will also update outdated regulations and frameworks to tackle pollution at source. 
• Competition Reform Bill
  • Delivers reforms to the Competition and Markets Authority to make competition investigations faster and more predictable reducing burdens on business and ensuring consumers benefit sooner.
• Regulating for Growth Bill
  • Will bring the UK’s regulatory system fit for the future by strengthening the Growth Duty and creating “Sandbox Power” which will allow businesses to test cutting-edge technologies safely, prove what works and scale up faster.
• Enhancing Financial Services Bill
  • Will modernise how the sector is regulated, enabling it to grow and lend more to businesses. It will make consumer protections fit for the digital age. It will ensure high standards of regulation and oversight.  
• Highways (Financing) Bill
  • Will introduce a new funding model to unlock greater levels of private capital investment in road infrastructure. This will entail a licence regime, an independent regulator and backstop measures to protect publicly used assets.
• Overnight Visitor Levy Bill
  • Will provide a legislative framework to enable mayors and potentially other local leaders to introduce a levy.

Ending the opportunity crisis: a Britain built for all:

• Social Housing Renewal Bill
  • This bill will extend the eligibility criteria for ‘right to buy’ to ten years for existing properties and 35 years for new-build social housing. It will increase protections for tenants who are victims of domestic abuse.
• Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill
  • Will ban new leaseholds for flats and cap ground rents at £250 per year. It will implement a new process for converting to commonhold and create a new legal framework for commonhold, providing full freehold ownership for flats and a bespoke approach to communal living without control by third-party landlords. It will make it cheaper and easier for leaseholders to extend their lease or buy their freehold. 
• Education for All Bill
  • Will provide early support to children with SEND by requiring settings to produce individual support plans for every child with SEND and introduce a new national template. It will create National Inclusion Standards to identify and implement best practice. It will provide over £200 million of investment in training for all staff. It will ensure schools are funded on a fair and consistent basis wherever they are in the country and require schools to pool a portion of their SEND funding. It will introduce a ‘triple lock’ of transitional provisions so no child loses their current support. 
• Representation of the People Bill
  • Will give 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote in all UK elections. It will broaden the range of ID that can be used at polling stations and move towards automated testing systems and strengthen the resilience and capacity of postal voting. The Bill will also introduce tougher rules on political donations and strengthen the power of the Electoral Commission to enforce these rules. It will bring in measures to tackle the intimidation and harassment of voters, electoral staff and campaigners online and in person
• Remediation Bill
  • Will fix the cladding crisis by making construction product manufacturers pay and equipping regulators with the powers to compel action. It will introduce a legal duty to remediate and a backstop that will allow a third party such as Homes England to carry out works themselves.
• Draft Conversion Practices Bill
  • A draft bill will be published for pre-legislative scrutiny that will be balanced and targeted to ensure that legitimate healthcare and broader support is provided for those seeking to explore their sexual orientation or gender.
• Draft Ticket Tout Bill
  • Will make it illegal to resell a ticket for a live event at more than its original cost and cap the service fees of resale sites. It will make it illegal for someone to resell more tickets than they originally entitled to buy and place strict obligations on resale platforms. The Competition and Markets Authority will be empowered to impose fines of up to 10% of global turnover on those found to be breaching new laws.
• Sporting Events Bill
  • Will ensure that major sporting events can be delivered as efficiently as possible by coordinating transport planning, deterring touts and prohibiting advertising and trading around events. 

Strengthening public services and reforming the state:

• Police Reform Bill
  • Create a new National Police Service that will deliver a unified response to the most serious crimes, set national standards and ensure a more consistent service. It will establish Local Policing Areas led by a senior officer – these will form part of fewer, larger police forces. The bill will abolish Police and Crime Commissioners. It will establish clear national priorities led by a more active Home Office and set sand enforce standards for policing. It will also establish a legal framework to underpin law enforcement use of facial recognition and similar technologies. 
• NHS Modernisation Bill
  • The bill will abolish NHS England, transferring its functions into the Department for Health and Social Care. It will also transfer the functions of Health Watch England into the department and the functions of the Health Services Safety and Investigations Body into the Care Quality Commission. It will create the Single Patient Record, enabling the NHS to bring together health and social care records in one place and enable people to access their own records.
• Railways and Passenger Benefits Bill
  • Establishes Great British Railways as a new publicly owned company. The bill also sets up a new Passenger Watchdog that will set consumer standards for railways and investigate poor service. The bill will simplify fares and tickets by consolidating the existing operator websites into a single online platform. 
• Digital Access to Services Bill
  • Will introduce a non-mandatory free-to-access digital ID that will provide a secure proof of identity across a range of government services. 
• Public Office (Accountability) Bill
  • Will deliver the ‘Hillsborough Law’ placing a duty of candour on public bodies and officials. It will create a new offence of misleading the public. It will provide bereaved families access to non-means-tested legal aid for all inquests where a public authority is an interested person and place a duty on public authorities to only use legal representation when necessary and proportionate. 
• Removal of Peerages Bill
  • Will create a mechanism for removing peerages from disgraced peers without the need for bespoke legislation.
• Courts Modernisation Bill
  • Removes the right of defendants to elect for a Crown Court (i.e. trial by Jury) in cases that can be heard in either a Crown or Magistrate’s Court and extends Magistrate’s Court’s sentencing powers. Replaces the automatic right to appeal against a conviction in Magistrates Court with a permission stage. Introduces new modes of trial by judge alone for complex and lengthy fraud cases. It will bring forward measures to prevent victims of sexual offences being unfairly undermined in the courtroom and clarify the support available to them. It will repeal the presumption of parental involvement to ensure children’s best interests are at the heart of decision-making. 
• Northern Ireland Troubles Bill
  • The bill will enable victims and bereaved families across the UK to seek information and accountability through a reformed Legacy Commission.
• Draft Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Bill
  • The bill will give regulators stronger enforcement powers and improve transparency and information sharing nationwide. It will also deliver more accessible services for disabled passengers.
• Civil Aviation Bill
  • The bill will deliver consumer enforcement powers to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to reduce harm, ensure compliance and allow for timely regulatory intervention. 
• Sovereign Grant Bill
  • Will set the grant amount for the Sovereign and reduce the amount paid following the Buckingham Palace Reservicing Programme. 

Strengthening our energy security:

• Energy Independence Bill
  • The bill will cut energy bills by placing Exchequer funding of 75% of the Renewables Obligation scheme for three years on a permanent basis. It will create the Warm Homes Agency and implement rules to ensure landlords invest in home upgrades. 
• Nuclear Regulation Bill
  • The bill will overhaul and streamline existing regulation and frameworks to improve coordination and speed of decision-making.
• Electricity Generator Levy Bill
  • Will uncouple electricity prices from gas prices and offer new low-carbon generators a long-term contract that guarantees a stable fixed price for the energy they generate. 

Strengthening our national security:

• Tackling State Threats Bill
  • The bill will give the government powers to ban state-backed organisations involved in espionage, sabotage and interference in the UK, such as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps.
• Armed Forces Bill
  • The bill contains new powers to make it easier to mobilise former military personnel and enshrines the Armed Forces Covenant into law.
• National Security Bill
  • The bill will criminalise harmful online content that “glorifies, trivialises or normalises” serious violence in the wake of the Southport attack in 2024.
• Immigration and Asylum Bill
  • The bill will make it easier for the government to revoke refugee status, take further steps to clamp down on small boat crossings and restrict taxpayer support to asylum seekers.
• Cyber Security and Resilience Bill
  • The bill aims to strengthen online protections for businesses and services across the country, as well as bring data centres into the scope of Britain’s cyber security reporting scheme.

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