King’s speech 2024 – what it means for you

The 2024 general election resulted in a Labour landslide, giving the party an effective working majority of 181 seats. Given that this will make it very easy for the government to pass legislation, it was unsurprising that the first King’s speech (and its accompanying memorandum) contained information on 40 proposed bills.

A couple of these bills – known as hybrid bills – were carried over from the previous parliament. The first is a bill to establish a holocaust memorial and visitor centre in Victoria Tower Gardens, London. The second is the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill.

In addition, the government has decided to introduce their own versions of bills that didn’t become law during the last parliament. These include a bill to ban smoking for people born after 2008, plus a Renters’ Rights Bill. The latter will deliver Labour’s pledge to abolish Section 21 (‘no fault’) evictions.

That said, the King’s speech gives us notice of a lot more legislation that will be considered during this parliament. Eye-catching bills include those to privatise the railways and to reform bus franchising. In this post, however, we look at the proposed bills that are most likely to affect your business, employment practices and your finances.

Economic stability and growth

The King’s speech announced the following bills relating to the economy and money:

• Budget Responsibility Bill. This will introduce a ‘fiscal lock’ that means major, permanent tax changes will have to be independently assessed by the Office for Budget Responsibility. The aim is to prevent uncosted measures being announced without sufficient scrutiny.
• National Wealth Fund Bill. This is a £7.3 billion capitalised fund to support industrial strategy and growth, plus the growth of clean energy.
• Pension Schemes Bill. A bill intended to help people get an average of more than £11,000 extra in their pension pots by retirement.
• Employment Rights Bill. This will ban zero-hours contracts, end hire and refire practices and strengthen sick pay and protections for new mothers. This bill is going to be introduced in the first 100 days of the parliament.
• Draft Audit Reform and Corporate Governance Bill. A revamped regulator will require greater transparency from large companies, helping to avoid corporate failures and to protect jobs.

Breaking down barriers

The King’s speech outlined a number of bills in the category ‘Break down the barriers to opportunity’. The following bills are of particular note:

• Skills England Bill. This will transfer functions from the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) to an arms-length body called Skills England. This organisation will bring together employers, unions, education and training providers, plus experts with national government to help develop the workforce the country needs.
• Renters’ Rights Bill. This will be a big deal for both landlords and tenants. Much of it will overlap with the Renters’ (Reform) Bill that didn’t become law in the last parliament. The new bill will abolish Section 21 evictions, strengthen tenants’ protections, apply the Decent Homes Standard to the private rental sector and make it illegal to discriminate against tenants with children or in receipt of benefits. We will look at this bill in more detail in an upcoming blog post.
• Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill. This will regulate ground rents, end ‘fleecehold’ and unfair costs, bolster leaseholder rights and end forfeiture.
• Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill. This will enshrine in law the right to equal pay for ethnic minority and disabled people. It will also introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for employers with more than 250 employees.
• Cyber Security and Resilience Bill. This will affect businesses due to mandated increased incident reporting, giving the government better data on cyber-attacks.

King’s speech 2024 and you

As we’ve seen, a good number of the proposed bills in the King’s speech have implications for businesses, employers and your finances. In the coming weeks and months, we will report on some of these bills in more detail – particularly bills like the Renters’ Rights Bill and the Pension Schemes Bill.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about how the new legislation could affect you, please feel free to get in touch with your THP account manager.