| Notable partly for the opportunity it provides to watch a man in a crown with a professional commitment to neutrality gravely read out a series of political propositions that he may very well view as insane, the king’s speech is more formally important as the occasion on which the government outlines its legislative priorities for the new parliamentary session – the coming year. “There are two real votes of confidence in a government – the budget and the king’s speech,” Kiran Stacey said. “It’s supposed to show you have parliamentary support for your programme.” How does it work? Written by the government and delivered by the king at the state opening of parliament, this year’s edition is expected to include about 35 bills that will form the basis of Labour’s agenda for its first year in office. It tends to be about 10 minutes long. There is nothing binding about it: the government can still drop or add bills to its programme. But it will set the tone. This year’s is particularly notable as the first to be given under a Labour government since the queen’s speech in 2009 – and the first year of a parliamentary term is always especially busy: “You get as much done as you can while you’ve got political capital and your opponents are fighting among themselves,” Kiran said. The contents of the bill will be debated for the next five days and be followed by a vote, which has been won by the government at every king’s or queen’s speech since 1924. What are the key bills to look out for? Most of the flagship policies from Labour’s manifesto are expected to feature, from the reintroduction of mandatory housing targets for local councils to the creation of a new publicly owned energy company and a bill orchestrating the nationalisation of railways within five years. The most prominent bill to be carried over from the last parliament is probably Rishi Sunak’s generational smoking ban, which would raise the legal age of smoking by a year, every year until it is outlawed. Eleni Courea has a full breakdown here. While the outline of all this will be familiar to anyone who followed Labour’s campaign, there are plenty of significant details that may emerge today, Kiran said – as well as news about which will be subject to consultation and which are expected to be pushed through more quickly. “The devolution bill, for instance – it’ll be interesting to see what kind of powers they expect to devolve. And unlike the Conservatives, they aren’t going to insist that areas have a mayor in place before they get these powers, so we may learn how that will work. “We’re also going to be looking quite carefully at what they say on workers’ rights, and what the supposed ban on zero-hours contracts will look like in practice,” he said. “And I’m interested to see whether they pick up the baton from the Conservatives on reforms to protect leaseholders and renters. They have said they might go back to some of that and strengthen it, but they haven’t been talking about it very much in recent weeks.” Could there be any surprises? At the Labour manifesto launch, Starmer sought to make a virtue of predictability, as contrast to the more pyrotechnic approach of recent Tory prime ministers: “It’s not about rabbits out of a hat, not about pantomime,” he said. “I’m running as the candidate to be prime minister, not to run the circus.” That will continue to apply today as the government tries to project itself as a diligent and responsible operation with little time for political games. In any case, Kiran said, “you very rarely get surprises in a king’s speech. That’s because when you’re making decisions about tax and spending at a budget, you can do things at short notice – but if you haven’t prepared the ground for a big piece of legislation, it’s likely to have problems.” The most likely divergence from the manifesto is, instead, in things that do not make the cut this year. The Daily Telegraph reported on Monday that two changes that would limit access to foreign labour – banning companies that break employment law from hiring workers from abroad, and limiting access to the visa system if they fail to train and recruit British workers – will not be included. The plan to allow voting from age 16 will not feature either. “The thinking is that this doesn’t help them deliver on their major promises,” Kiran said. “They insist they’re not dropping the idea and they’ll do it before the next election. But there will be others who think they could have got it through now in a fairly straightforward way.” How will the Conservatives respond? | 