Keir Starmer must ensure that the King’s Speech is more than a list of legislation

The Labour Party has been given an enormous parliamentary mandate to deliver change. But the electorate is sceptical about government and politics. Polling shows that one of the biggest reasons voters switched away from the Conservatives was because they felt “they have not delivered what they promised”. If the electorate feels the same way in five years’ time, Labour will have failed.

Keir Starmer’s first step towards avoiding that fate should be to develop and publish his priorities for the next five years. In our Commission on the Centre of Government, we found that “the prime minister’s broad approach is rarely translated into the outcomes they actually want to achieve, or an articulation of the trade-offs they are prepared to make to get there. This leaves a strategic vacuum at the heart of government”.

Governing well is predicated on the prime minister knowing what they are planning to do with the power they have acquired, and transmitting that knowledge to the rest of government. The King’s Speech on 17 July is Starmer’s most valuable early opportunity to do this.

Define the priorities for government

To make the most of the King’s Speech, the government should set in train vital early work to define the new government’s priorities. Labour’s five missions should now be translated from the manifesto into defined and measurable outcomes.

The prime minister should have already asked his policy and secretariat teams in No.10 and the Cabinet Office to work with the Treasury and other departments to agree a set of high-level outcomes. These should be reflected in the speech next week. Then in the days that follow, but before summer recess, the centre of government should produce a document setting out its Priorities for Government.

Doing this would set clear yardsticks by which the delivery of the missions could be judged. It would also give a sense of prioritisation and the trade-offs the prime minister is willing to make. It would keep Whitehall on course to deliver the government’s priorities, and harness the power of the Treasury to deliver a set of whole-government objectives. 

The King’s language need not be prescriptive, and there is little value to simply repeating material from the manifesto. We already know about plans to hire 2,500 new nurses and provide 40,000 more NHS appointments each week.

Instead, as well as setting out a legislative agenda, the speech should provide a lens through which secretaries of state in their departments can make decisions. On health, for example, it might mean being clear that Labour will focus on preventative strategies to reduce demand on acute care, and is content to accept the ‘nanny state’ accusations that might come with that. 

King’s Speech outcomes should also span the timeframe that makes most sense for the issue at hand, rather than being constrained to a single parliament or spending cycle. Labour’s pledge to achieve zero-carbon energy provision by 2030 need not be compressed into an alternative pledge by 2028, for example.

The supporting material for the King’s Speech should identify which ministers and officials are responsible for each mission in government, as well as the role other departments have to play. And it should introduce a set of principles that put flesh on the bone of what mission-driven government will mean in practice. It could give a shared understanding of the new government’s approach to, for example, prioritising prevention, long-term decision making and collaboration with other sectors.

Build the evidence in preparation for a multi-year spending review

Starting now, to run over the summer, the government will need to work to strengthen the evidence base behind each outcome – what is the government doing already, how effectively is it addressing policy problems and how is it spending public money?

So, the Cabinet Office and Treasury should jointly commission a series of ‘where are we now?’ reviews for each of the missions, taking a detailed look at existing policy to complement Rachel Reeves’ assessment of the public finance inheritance. 

This analysis will put government in a much stronger position to develop coherent, cross-cutting plans for each of its priorities. That will be important when the time comes for a comprehensive multi-year spending review, which should align departments’ budgets and policy proposals with these priorities in the collaborative and cross-cutting way implied by Labour’s mission-driven approach to government.

Be brave in announcing priorities and resolving trade-offs

Having defined what the new government is trying to achieve and set in train the further work needed, the prime minister will be able to make the most of the King’s Speech next week. 

1945 was a long time ago, but this Labour government would be well advised to mimic Clement Attlee’s bravery. His Labour manifesto was clear that reducing citizens’ “so-called economic freedom” was a price worth paying to achieve full employment. Starmer and his team need to find the language to teach and lead the government and the country towards their desired ends. 

The beginning of a new government is the point at which it has the most political capital. Setting out the prime minister’s priorities and how they are to be reflected across government policy is essential to success. If this new government is to transform the country and convince the electorate it has delivered real change, announcing a plan and holding itself to account for its delivery is the most important first step.