The King's Speech-what should members look out for?

We're blessed here at BECBC to have a team of volunteers on the board who bring diverse expertise to the organisation & we've had two of them looking over the King's Speech today.

Our Legal Director, Tom Scaife, and Financial Director, Andrew Clitheroe, have picked out some highlights for members to digest.

Tom says:

Amidst a range of headline grabbing proposals in the King’s speech today (nationalisation of rail for example), the new government proposed anticipated changes to employment law. The proposals are vague at this stage, but reflect the promises made in Labour’s “New Deal for Working People” forming part of its manifesto. Specifically, it outlined a commitment to “ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights”.

The proposals in summary:

Mission led and based upon principles of security, fairness, and opportunity for all.

Securing economic growth will be a fundamental mission – working in partnership with businesses and independent people prioritising wealth creation for all communities.

Committed to “making work pay” and will legislate to introduce a new deal for working people to ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights.

It will seek to place requirements on those working to deliver the most powerful artificial intelligence models.

Action to be taken to get people back in employment following the impact of the pandemic.

Specific legislation on race equality will be published in draft to enshrine the full right to equal pay in law .


It is very much “watch this space” as more detail is awaited. If the specific proposals from the manifesto make it into legislation, this will have a significant impact on employers. It is anticipated that the reference to banning exploitative practices, will include measures to restrict the use of zero-hour contracts, ending "Fire and Rehire" practices, granting wider day one rights including day one protection from unfair dismissal, improving statutory Sick Pay and making flexible working “genuinely” the default position for employees.

From a Finance Director viewpoint Andrew has picked up on some other areas in the King's Speech:

Securing economic growth is a 'fundamental mission' for government.

Given the perilous state of public finances, the investment in public services we all want can only come through economic growth and investment but that relies on the government creating the right environment and businesses delivering the growth.

With no less than 40 bills in the speech, I can’t fault the ambition even if the pace of change, especially in the railway sector, means we might be waiting a long time (not unlike our trains..) to see any real difference. I’ve picked up on three areas of focus for our members & their employees.

Transport Improvements: The government plans to improve transportation systems, including plans to nationalise railways. As existing operator contracts expire, a bill announced the default will now be a transfer back to public ownership. So not a quick fix then, with years left on the majority of operational contracts, we have plenty of time to see how this will work in practice as the new Great British Railways is introduced.

Housing: With an average house price in England above £300k, the government intends to accelerate planning reform to build 1.5m houses new houses in England in 5 years, that’s 822 a day. How? By prioritising building on brownfield, former industrial sites, and the less scenic, previously developed parts of the green belt. Former car parks and wasteland, the so-called grey belt. It hopes that planning can pass easier and with less controversy. Planning reform which makes great soundbite at the national level, but controversial and difficult at a local level. It’ll be interesting to see what this looks like in rural areas like Cumbria.

Green Energy and Environment. I am sure welcomed by the King, a fierce champion of environmental issues, as well as our members, the speech outlined the government commitment to green energy including the creation of Great British (noticing a theme yet..?) Energy. Backed by £8bn of investment and funded in part by a tax on oil and gas businesses, how will the ambition for the UK to become a ‘clean energy superpower’ work in practice?

With issuing no new extraction licences for North Sea Fossil Fuels, the initial focus of GBE is to double onshore wind, triple solar power, and quadruple offshore wind by 2030. Nuclear is a longer term solution but nonetheless needs decision soon if it is to help deliver the baseline energy our system needs.

Two weeks in, the government has reiterated its election promises and has the mandate to deliver, let’s see if it gets on with it now.

You can view the full King's Speech here