King's Speech: Starmer unveils Labour agenda amid leadership challenge

King Charles has unveiled the Labour government's agenda for the next year, outlining major reforms as Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces a significant leadership threat from within his own party.

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 parliamentary session on Wednesday, a moment he hopes will persuade wavering Labour MPs that he should remain in office.

Key bills in the new legislative programme

Wednesday's King's Speech included bills to abolish NHS England, overhaul the provision of special educational needs teaching, limit trials by jury, introduce a 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. These lie at the centre of the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood's immigration changes but 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.

Starmer's message to a divided Labour Party

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 which the prime minister's allies hope will resonate with 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."

Economic stability and housing reforms

The King said in his 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 which ministers hope will boost economic growth, including a bill to lay the ground to adopt European regulations - 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.

The prime minister is promising two major reforms 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.

Overhauling public services: NHS, education, and courts

On public services, the legislative 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 reforms, fewer people will be eligible for education, health and care plans than would otherwise be the case, though 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 - though the ID will not be mandatory after the prime minister backed down on a key element of his plans.