Keir Starmer has put long-promised changes to education, health and the courts at the heart of his agenda for the next year, as the embattled prime minister looks to prove he can enact the scale of change being demanded by Labour MPs and voters.
The prime minister unveiled his legislative programme for the next parliamentry session on Wednesday, a moment he hopes will persuade wavering Labour MPs he should remain in office.
Wednesday’s king’s speech included bills to abolish NHS England, overhaul the provision of special educational needs teaching, limit trials by jury, introduce digital ID and end the leasehold system in England and Wales.
It also includes measures to make it harder for migrants to gain settled status in the UK, which lie at the centre of the home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s immigration changes, but which could trigger a backlash from Labour MPs.
There were few surprises during the speech, which took place against the backdrop of a bitter Labour party battle over whether Starmer should be allowed to stay in Downing Street.
The prime minister’s allies say the changes will allow the party to go into the next election having fulfilled its promise to fix Britain’s struggling public services.
In a written introduction to the king’s speech, Starmer said: “For two decades our country has been buffeted by crisis after crisis: the 2008 financial crash, the Tory austerity that followed it, Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine war. The response in each case was always a desperate attempt to get back to a status quo. Even though that same status quo had repeatedly made working people pay the price.
“This time must be different. And this king’s speech shows it will be different, with a plan to make the country stronger and fairer.”
And in a message potentially aimed at fractious Labour MPs, he added: “At moments like this we face a choice. We can sink into the politics of grievance and division. Or we can choose to see it as an opportunity to deliver on the change we promised the British people.”
The king said in the speech: “My government believes that the United Kingdom’s economic security depends on raising living standards in every part of the United Kingdom. My ministers will support measures that maintain stability and control the cost of living.”
The speech included several measures that ministers hope will boost economic growth, including a bill to lay the ground to adopt European regulations, which is part of the prime minister’s plan to move closer to the EU. Another will force regulators to consider growth when making and enforcing rules for business.
Starmer is promising two major changes to housing in England and Wales: a bill to make it harder for people to buy their own council houses, and another to all but end the leasehold system. The leasehold bill will introduce a ban on new flats being sold as leasehold properties, though the housing minister Matthew Pennycook recently said the ban would not be enacted until after the next election.
On public services, the package will bring in several bills aimed at repairing major problems, including long NHS waiting lists, major courts backlogs and the escalating costs of providing special educational needs support.
Wes Streeting is due to follow through with his pledge to legislate to abolish NHS England, something the health secretary promised last year and the process for which has already begun.
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, will enact the changes to special educational needs provision which she outlined in a speech earlier this year. Under the changes, fewer people will be eligible for education, health and care plans than would otherwise be the case, but schools will have more responsibility for deciding how pupils with special educational needs should be taught.
Ministers will also legislate to bring in a digital ID for the first time as a way to check people’s immigration status when they get a new job, although the ID will not be mandatory after the prime minister backed down on a key element of his plans.