King’s speech 2024: experts explain new government’s plans for workers’ rights, rail nationalisation, housebuilding and more

Academic experts break down the policy highlights in the 2024 king’s speech.

_The king’s speech has been delivered, marking the state opening of parliament (technically, this was the first king’s speech with a Labour government in 74 years). The speech was written by Keir Starmer’s government, not the king, and lays out the government’s agenda for the coming year. Here, a team of The Conversation’s academic experts break down the key policies most likely to have a direct impact on people’s lives.

Read the rest of our expert reactions to the government’s plans for political reform here.

Rail nationalisation can help get carbon targets back on track

Chia-Lin Chen, Senior Lecturer in Urban and Regional Planning, University of Liverpool

The king’s speech endorses the government’s rail renationalisation plan. Great British Railways, a new arm’s length body, is expected to play an overarching role in bringing together the different agents – Network Rail and train operators – to simplify and improve rail services.

There is an urgent need to address these worsening services both in terms of affordability and reliability, and to regain trust from passengers. Electric cars should not be the only solution for a net zero future – rail has huge potential to contribute to decarbonisation.

The rail nationalisation of the 21st century should not be a repeat of the 1947 nationalisation programme. Instead, it should be strategic and look at the bigger picture, taking a holistic approach for both passenger and freight services.

For passengers, price, reliability and accessibility are key. At the same time, the government should plan to invest in long-term rail infrastructure and capacity. This is crucial to ensure the UK’s future mobility shifts to rail as the backbone of national transport infrastructure.

Stability and credibility in finances

Phil Tomlinson, Professor of Industrial Strategy, University of Bath

New legislation has been announced requiring tax and spending plans to be scrutinised by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). This is aimed squarely at underpinning the new government’s credibility with the financial markets. It means the OBR will be required to produce its own independent forecast (and assessment) of all “significant changes” to tax and spending set out in the chancellor’s budget.

This is the new government trying to convince markets that stability will be the “cornerstone” of its economic policy. In other words, it will not repeat former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s ill-fated mini-budget of unfunded borrowing for tax cuts in 2022 – for which the Treasury refused to publish an accompanying OBR forecast.

Instead, the king’s speech contained a promise that the new government will abide by self-imposed fiscal rules that effectively will be policed by the OBR. But this may prove to be a double-edged sword.

The UK’s fiscal rules – inherited from the previous government – limit government borrowing and require public debt to be falling as a proportion of GDP over a five-year period. The rules are based on OBR forecasts, but these have often been wrong because it is difficult to make accurate predictions for five years into the future.

Previous chancellors have tweaked the fiscal rules, but there may be less flexibility to do so in future. Given that OBR forecasts and assessments now have a new legal standing, thanks to the plans in the king’s speech, any changes to (or breaches of) the fiscal rules may lose the Treasury credibility in the markets.

Many economists have raised concerns that the fiscal rules are holding back much-needed public investment, which is constraining UK growth. The Institute for Government recently suggested these rules ought to be more flexible in their design and implementation, and should align with the government’s long-term priorities. It will be interesting to see if the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, heeds such advice.

Opportunities for worker wellbeing and employment rights

Jane Parry, Associate Professor of Work and Employment, University of Southampton

In promising to end “exploitative” working practices, the government can also play a key role in modelling and disseminating good practice – providing employers with tools for designing work systems that build healthy and productive workforces.

Plans announced in the king’s speech to enhance employment rights might include guidance on good practice for out-of-hours and non-traditional contracts, and making occupational health considerations a routine part of hybrid work design. And employers could also look at ways to scrutinise work proposals for any negative impacts on diversity.

The government can invest in trials and skills development around hybrid and flexible working, which would enhance access to decent work and offer greater agility for organisations. These might include innovation around third spaces of work such as libraries or community centres, and other workplace adaptations.

It will be important to ensure that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which provide the majority of UK employment, are not left behind in this innovation, and that all learning incorporates their unique needs. SMEs require support to ensure they can contribute towards sustainable growth of the economy.

Adapting to the COVID pandemic, and subsequently to hybrid working, has led to the most rapid period of learning in living memory for UK employers. This parliament could be the perfect time to place decent work and wellbeing at the centre of productivity discussions.

Accelerating investment in clean energy sources and services

Colin Nolden, Senior Research Fellow at the Energy Institute, University of Sheffield

Great British Energy, a publicly owned clean power company to be launched with headquarters in Scotland, is tasked with accelerating investment in clean energy sources. But it is unclear whether this will be achieved through public or private ownership of energy generation assets.

The establishment of an Industrial Strategy Council suggests a commitment to “mission orientation” – an approach that considers growth and prosperity as the main goals. The plan is to achieve this through long-term commitments to industrial, technological and service innovations which deliver specific outcomes – including clean energy and sustainable aviation fuel.

Meanwhile, the launch of Great British Railways, alongside more opportunities for collaboration among local and combined authorities, indicates support for public sector involvement in service provision at both local and regional levels.

These steps point towards a commitment to protect clean energy deployment that involves local authorities and community energy organisations from market pressures. Further innovation support among immature technologies – such as green hydrogen, floating offshore wind farms and tidal power – will enable more cost reductions. Public investment in mature technologies such as onshore and offshore wind will encourage private investment, while maintaining competitive market environments that help lower bills.

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Failure to scrap two-child limit on benefits

Ruth Patrick, Professor of Social Policy, University of York

For researchers of poverty and social security, the king’s speech was most marked by what it didn’t contain, rather than what it did. While it was good to see a commitment to legislate on workers’ rights, there was very little proposed that will directly help the record numbers of children facing poverty across the UK.

A child wellbeing bill will be welcome, but it feels impossible to speak of the wellbeing of children while the two-child limit remains in place, gripping around 1.6 million children in poverty purely because of the number of brothers and sisters they have.

To properly address child poverty – rightly called a “stain on our society” by Liz Kendall, the new secretary of state for work and pensions – there is an urgent need to invest in social security, and start to reverse more than a decade of cuts and retrenchment in state support. The 4.3 million children in poverty and their families can wait no longer for change; they need support, and they need it now.

Getting Britain building could come with hidden costs

Graham Haughton, Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning; Anupam Nanda, Professor of Urban Economics & Real Estate; Richard Kingston, Professor of Urban Planning and GISc – all University of Manchester

To get Britain building, as was promised in the king’s speech, other building blocks are needed first, including more training for construction workers, building inspectors and planners. The speech nodded towards sustainability and reform of building regulations to address climate change, particularly energy performance in new buildings – this will be vital as well.

The danger of not getting these building blocks in place early is that the scale of proposed house building will derail other policy goals, such as controlling inflation, reducing energy costs, and achieving net zero targets.

If, over the next two years, homes are built at the rapid pace that has been proposed, it might contribute to diverting skills from other growth sectors, such as vital retrofit work for heat pump or solar installation. It could also potentially fuel labour shortages and some regional and national wage inflation – mainly in the south-east, where the gap between housing demand and supply is severe, and affordability is an especially serious issue.

While some increase in wages would be welcome after several years of stagnation, it is important to avoid returning to earlier periods of regional skill shortages and wage costs, especially now it is no longer possible to rely so much on attracting labour from EU countries.

So, training enough new construction workers, retraining existing workers, and attracting back those who have either left the labour market or moved into other sectors, will all be key to getting Britain building.

What improving education could look like

Lorna Smith, Associate Professor in Education, University of Bristol

The king’s speech announced the introduction of a bill “to raise standards in education and promote children’s wellbeing”. This legislation is likely to include the requirement that all state-funded schools follow the national curriculum. Academies and free schools will no longer be able to limit students’ opportunities and choices by, for instance, prioritising core subjects such as science and maths over wide technology and language options.

The children’s wellbeing bill looks set to also include a review of the whole curriculum. This is necessary. The curriculum needs to be revised and updated if it is to prepare young people for jobs not yet developed or even imagined.

A significant problem is the importance of assessment, which compels teachers to “teach to the test”. This means the key to revising the curriculum, and also the most significant challenge, is to simultaneously revise what is assessed and how this is done.

Exams, prioritised by the previous government, may not test the right skills and knowledge. A campaign is underway, for example, which calls on the government to reform the GCSEs in English Language and English Literature, describing them as “not fit for purpose”.

Traditional school subjects may be becoming outdated. And, now that young people must stay in education until 18, the question must be asked whether GCSEs at 16 are still necessary. If the national curriculum is to stay, this review must consult widely. It must listen to teachers in different communities, universities and employers – and listen carefully.

Anupam Nanda's research has been funded/sponsored by various UK and international public and private funding bodies and companies, including UKRI, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (formerly), IPF, RICS. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS with IBG). He is a board member of the European Real Estate Society.

Colin Nolden receives funding from the British Academy through its Net Zero Governance Programme and from the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) through its Phase 4 Programme. Colin also works as an expert peer-reviewer for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and as a non-executive director of Community Energy South.

Graham is a member of the Town and Country Planning Association and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society/ Institute of British Geographers. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS). He has received ESRC funding in the past for two projects on planning, plus one on sustainable urbanism and one on flood risk governance.

Jane Parry receives funding from the ESRC and the British Academy. She is a member of the Labour Party.

Lorna Smith is a member of the National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE), the English Association (EA) and the British Educational Research Association (BERA). None are politically affiliated.

Phil Tomlinson receives funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for Made Smarter Innovation: Centre for People-Led Digitalisation.

Richard Kingston currently receives funding from The Natural Environment Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council. He is a chartered member of The Royal Town Planning Institute and a member of the Town and Country Planning Association.

Ruth Patrick's work on the two-child limit and the benefit cap was funded by the Nuffield Foundation. She is a member of the Labour Party.

Chia-Lin Chen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.