London:

Britain’s new Labour government set out its first package of proposed laws on Wednesday as Prime Minister Keir Starmer tries to deliver on his promise to rebuild the country.

The King’s Speech – given by the monarch but written by government ministers – opens the new session of parliament.

Below are some of the government’s key policy plans:

PLANNING REFORM

A Planning and Infrastructure Bill will seek to increase the number of homes built each year and simplify the process for approving key infrastructure projects by speeding up the time it takes to get planning permission.

The government signalled the planning bill would restrict the ability of local people to block new developments saying there would be “democratic engagement with how, not if, homes and infrastructure are built”.

WORKERS’ RIGHTS

An Employment Rights Bill will ban companies imposing zero-hour contracts, outlaw fire and rehire tactics and strengthen workers’ rights by providing parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal to all workers.

The bill will also make it unlawful to sack a woman who has had a baby for six months after her return to work, except in specific circumstances, and make flexible working the default when people start jobs.

ECONOMIC SAFEGUARDS

A Budget Responsibility Bill will guarantee that any government making significant tax and spending changes would be subject to an independent forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the official budget watchdog.

This is intended to avoid a repeat of former prime minister Liz Truss’s 2022 mini-budget, a $50-billion package of unfunded tax cuts which was delivered without an independent assessment, triggering a meltdown in financial markets.

ILLEGAL MIGRATION

The government wants to pass a new border security bill that will give law enforcement agencies counter-terrorism powers to target the gangs who bring tens of thousands of people to Britain in small boats every year.

This will include stop and search powers for border officers and stronger penalties for advertising people smuggling. Labour scrapped the previous Conservative government’s plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

HOUSING REFORM

Renters will be able to challenge unreasonable rent increases. The Renters’ Rights Bill will abolish no fault evictions, end “rental bidding wars”, and make it illegal for landlords to discriminate against families with children or those receiving benefits.

FINANCIAL REGULATIONS

The government’s new financial bills will seek to encourage consolidation of smaller pension schemes, improve the process for rescuing failed banks by expanding the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, and give new powers to a new auditing regulator.

CLIMATE AND ENERGY

The government will pass legislation to set up the centrepiece of its green energy plans, GB Energy, backed by 8.3 billion pounds ($11 billion), to co-invest in leading technologies and help support capital-intensive projects.

RAILWAYS

It will bring rail franchises back under government control when private contracts expire. It will seek to boost east to west connectivity in northern England but will not relaunch a high-speed railway between Birmingham and Manchester.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS

As part of plans to reform parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords, it will remove the right of hereditary peers – passed down through family lines indefinitely and without election – to sit and vote. There are 92 hereditary peers out of more than 800 members.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

The new crime and policing bill will introduce a ban on so-called “ninja swords”, seek to crack down on shoplifting and target people involved in harassment and drinking alcohol in public.

CYBER SECURITY

A Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will update Britain’s regulation in a similar manner to the EU’s proposed Cyber Resilience Act, forcing companies to report incidents including ransomware incidents to give more data on cyber attacks.

DEVOLUTION

An English Devolution Bill will give mayors and other local leaders more say over economic decisions including on transport and jobs.

Power in Britain is centralised compared to other large economies with many funding decisions made in London. The government says further devolution will help boost productivity and bring about more balanced economic growth.

CONVERSION THERAPY

It plans to ban so-called conversion therapy, which targets lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people with the aim to change their sexual orientation or gender identity.

It said any ban must not cover legitimate psychological support to people exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity. The previous Conservative government had sought to introduce similar legislation.

SMOKING

The government plans to gradually phase out the sale of cigarettes as first announced by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Children born on or after Jan. 1, 2009 will never be able to legally buy cigarettes under a planned bill.

PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Labour plans to end some tax breaks given to fee-paying schools and to use that money to raise standards in government-run schools.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

As the last full day of campaigning dawned, the U.K.’s Conservative Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, faced with the prospect of a crushing defeat at the hands of the opposition Labour Party , said he was still “fighting hard for every vote”.

Earlier in the day, one of his Cabinet colleagues, Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride, had told the BBC that the Conservatives should focus on the kind of opposition party they would become, with Labour on its way to getting the “largest majority that this country has ever seen”. On July 2, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman had said the election was “over”.

“What Mel was doing was warning of what a very large Labour majority, unchecked, would mean for people,” Mr. Sunak said on July 3, in an interview with ITV, as the six-week campaign began drawing to a close.

Although the U.K. has had the highest tax burden in 70 years under the Conservative government, the last stretch of the Conservative campaign has focused on warning Britons that Labour as a party of taxation, should not be given such a large majority.

“24 hours to top the tax-raising Labour supermajority,” Mr. Sunak said on X.

Mr. Sunak, the fifth Prime Minister in his party’s 14 year rule, and at risk of losing his own seat in Yorkshire, has been trying to reach out to workers by visiting  warehouses and supermarkets in the last few days of the campaign.

Britons have struggled with a cost of living crisis, high taxes and crumbling public services, including long waits to see doctors in the National Health Service. Immigration and borders are also a politically sensitive issue with the some parties blaming migrants for the drain on public services. Both the major parties have promised checks on migration, with the Conservatives also promising an annual cap on legal migration.

Labour has consistently enjoyed an approximately 20 point lead over the Tories in polling. With support for the Conservative Party is at a low, Mr. Sunak appeared to cut his losses when he  surprised many by calling an election six weeks ago, months ahead of when it was expected.

A July 2 Survation poll predicted just 64 seats for the Tories (down from 365 in 2019), with a record 484 for Labour. The poll is one of several recent surveys that  used a relatively new statistical technique called multi-level regression and post stratification or MRP, which allows for differences in local voting preferences. The Labour party , by some projections, is set to outdo its 1997 landslide victory when, under Tony Blair, it won 418 seats to defeat the John Major Tory government.

Labour Leader Keir Starmer, who is likely to become Britain’s Prime Minister on Friday (July 5), had a hectic day of campaigning planned, that began in Wales, and ended in England, with stops in Scotland en route.

Standing beside the First Minister of Wales, Vaughn Gething, Mr. Starmer talked about the “double benefit” of having two Labour leaders working together. “When we saw what might happen with Tata Steel in the latest development, our first act was to get in touch with each other, within minutes,” he said.

The Labour leader referred to Mr. Sunak allegedly being too busy to take a phone call from the former First Minister Mark Drakeford, following Tata Steel’s announcement in January 2024 that it would be installing an electric arc furnace, to replace its blast furnaces, and move that would reportedly make close to 3,000 jobs redundant.

During his speech, he emphasized Labour’s central campaign theme: ‘change’, as he warned against complacency.

“We have to say over and over again, ‘Change only happens if you vote for it,’” Mr. Starmer said in South Wales, home to Port Talbot steelworks, owned by Tata Steel.

Responding to Mr. Stride and others, Labour Party leader, Mr. Starmer said the Conservatives were attempting to “dissuade” people from voting.

“That is a terrible place for the Tory party to have got to,” said.

It’s not just about Labour and the Conservatives. The Lib Dems (Liberal Democrats) and Scottish National Party (SNP) and others are also in the fray.

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey, whose campaign has style has included stunts, from bungee jumping to going down water slides, said on July 3 that coming in at third place would be “nirvana” as it would give his party the chance to ask questions in Parliament each week during Prime Minister’s Questions.

Also in the fray is Reform UK, right of the Conservative Party and led by Nigel Farage, who was the de facto leader of the U.K.’s Brexit movement. Reform is projected to win a handful of seats (up to 7), eating into the Conservative’s vote share. The anti-immigration, nativist party found itself in the middle of a controversy over the weekend, when one of its campaigners was caught on a mic using a racial slur to describe Mr. Sunak, who is the country’s first Asian British and Indian-origin Prime Minister.

This election could also gain significance for another first: the largest share of ethnic minorities in Parliament by some accounts, including several of Indian descent or born in India. Some 20-30 more MPs are likely to be ethnic minorities according to an analysis by British Future, a think tank.

“Britain is closing the gap between the diversity of Parliament and the electorate much faster than anyone thought possible,” said Sunder Katwala, Director of British Future, while he cautioned that better representation does not guarantee inclusion or the right policies.

“But a stronger share of voice does make a difference,” he said.