European Union referendum bill

The British people are to be given their first chance since 1975 to have a say over Britain’s membership of the EU under the terms of the European referendum bill. This will pave the way for an in/out referendum on Britain’s EU membership that will have to be held by the end of 2017. The franchise will be the same as for the general election, plus members of the House of Lords and Commonwealth citizens in Gibraltar. This means that in addition to UK nationals, Commonwealth and citizens from the Irish Republic will be entitled to vote. NW

Investigatory powers bill

The investigatory powers bill is far wider in scope than expected. This post-Snowden national security law will not only cover the snooper’s charter legislation on tracking individual web and social media use, but also the security services’ powers of bulk interception of the content of communications. It will also “provide appropriate oversight and safeguard arrangements”. AT



Extremism bill

The controversial extremism bill is designed to “stop extremists promoting views and behaviour that undermine British values”. It will include powers to “strengthen the role of Ofcom so that tough measures can be taken against channels that broadcast extremist content”. This is despite warnings from the cabinet minister Sajid Javid that home secretary Theresa May’s initial proposals threatened free speech. Details of bans on extremist speakers on university campuses are also expected. The bill also includes the introduction of employment checks, enabling companies to find out whether an individual is an extremist so he or she can be barred from working with children. This is alongside the already announced proposals for banning orders, extremism disruption orders and closure orders to be used against premises used to support extremism. AT



Immigration bill



The immigration bill will create a new enforcement agency to tackle the worst cases of exploitation as well as creating an offence of illegal working and enabling wages to be seized as the proceeds of crime. Ministers promise to consult on the introduction of a new visa levy on businesses that recruit overseas labour to fund extra apprenticeships for British and EU workers. AT

Proposal for a bill of rights

Ministers appear to have acknowledged that finding a quick agreement within the Conservative party over how to abolish the Human Rights Act will not be possible. So even a post-election promise to produce a draft bill within 100 days appears to have been dropped. Instead, a period of consultation is now promised. The Queen did state that the government would bring forward proposals for a British bill of rights – but at most that only binds ministers to producing a draft bill within the next 12 months. AT

Full employment and welfare benefits bill



The handful of named social security changes outlined in the Conservative manifesto are contained in this bill, amounting to a tiny chunk – around £1.5bn – of the promised total of £12bn a year in welfare cuts. The four main elements of the bill are: a reduction in the household benefit cap from £26,000 to £23,000; a two-year freeze on the majority of working-age benefits, including unemployment benefit, child benefit and tax credits, from 2016-17; the removal of automatic entitlement to housing support for 18- to 21-year-olds; the creation of duties to report on the progress of government policies such as the Troubled Families Initiative, full employment and apprenticeships.



The bill will in effect break the link between the benefits cap and median earnings. The coalition always argued the cap was fair because it was calibrated to ensure no workless household received in benefits income more than the £26,000 earned by the median household. The reduced level would mean unemployed households’ total benefits income would be capped at a sum far less than median earnings. Given that low-paid working household income is inflated beyond £26,000 by tax credits, the income gap between households in work, and those which are not, will widen. PB

Childcare bill

The extension of free childcare will have a more limited impact than perhaps many parents realise, because it will only be open to families where “all” parents work. Details of how many hours they need to work to qualify for the additional 15 hours will be crucial. The policy could also be complicated where parents are separated. Funding will be controversial: childcare providers and local authorities, who manage the scheme, are already unhappy that they are underfunded. Then there is the headache of making sure that enough places are available for additional children, if this is not to simply become a subsidy for already working parents. Attempts by the Tory minister Liz Truss to expand childcare in the last parliament failed. The annual scheme pays out for 38 weeks, equivalent to the school year. JJ

Cities and devolution bill

This bill would give generic powers to any elected mayor in a combined authority of councils in major English cities – especially in economic and policing powers, including taking on the role of police and crime commissioners. The potential groundbreaking plan for devolution to city regions would start in Greater Manchester, called the northern powerhouse by George Osborne. There will be resistance to the proposal if Osborne continues to insist that powers can only be devolved to authorities in a combined region that accept an elected mayor. The bill would also give permission for councils within an area to streamline their governance. PW

Trade unions bill

The trade unions bill will create more hurdles for public sector workers to jump over before they can call a strike. First, more than 50% of a union’s members must vote in order for the ballot to be valid, and second, at least 40% of those entitled to vote must be in favour of the strike. There is to be a new time limit on the ballot for industrial action and a promise to tackle intimidation of non-striking workers, without specifying how this would be done. The government said the point of the bill was to “ensure that disruption to essential public services has a democratic mandate”. The bill would also force trade union members to opt in if they want to pay a political levy in a move that could hit the funding of the Labour party. RM

Housing bill

The Conservatives have confirmed one of their most controversial election pledges, to extend Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme to 1.3 million housing association tenants in England. Tenants will be offered discounts worth up to £102,700 in London and £77,000 in the rest of England, although not in Scotland or Wales, where right-to-buy is being abolished. There are about 2.5 million housing association tenants in England and, of those, about 1.3 million have lived in their properties for three or more years and will be given the opportunity to buy. The Tories will also require councils to sell the most valuable homes from their remaining stock. The proceeds would, the party promises, be used to build replacement affordable homes on a one-for-one basis. It is this promise that is likely to be most closely watched by housing analysts, given the chronic lack of building by local authorities and housing associations in recent years.

The government is targeting 200,000 new starter homes across Britain, which will go on sale to first-time buyers under 40 at a 20% discount below the open market value. It also pledged to tackle local authority red tape, forcing councils to allow more self-build homes. Wary of a backlash from nimby voters in rural and greenbelt areas, the government is focusing its building strategy on brownfield land. It will set up a statutory register, with the aim of getting development plans in place on 90% of suitable brownfield land by 2020. It also promises to speed up the planning system to push through housebuilding projects, although this is likely to meet stiff local resistance. PC

Education and and adoption bill

Designed to speed up central intervention in so-called failing schools, the new bill will beef up the powers of the regional schools commissioners – the national network of eight officials with delegated powers from the Department for Education. This is the government’s attempt to solve the problem of academies that have not been transformed by their change in legal status. So far, the evidence is that merely converting a school into a sponsored academy makes little difference. The bill also creates a new offence, as it were, of a “coasting” school, and will define exactly what a coasting school is: one with a prolonged period of mediocre performance and insufficient pupil progress. RA

Scotland bill



While the Scotland bill largely follows the draft legislation laid out by David Cameron and Alistair Carmichael in Edinburgh at the beginning of the year, the SNP has accused it of failing to deliver the Smith commission agreement faithfully. The SNP believes it now has an electoral mandate for a far more ambitious set of powers detailed in its manifesto, including increasing the minimum wage in Scotland at a faster rate than the UK, controlling national insurance rates, introducing separate equality policies and setting other business taxes independently of the Treasury: it will continue to push for these. The question remains what impact English votes for English laws will have on the behaviour of the new SNP MPs. LB

English votes for English laws

The promise of English votes for English laws (known as Evel) will be implemented through changes to the standing orders of the House of Commons rather than a new bill. This would ensure that decisions affecting England only or England and Wales could only be taken with the consent of the majority of MPs representing constituencies in those parts of the UK. The bill would also “end the manifest unfairness whereby Scotland is able to decide its own laws in devolved areas, only for Scottish MPs also to be able to have the potentially decisive say on similar matters that affect only England and Wales”. RM

Policing and criminal justice bill

This bill will implement the home secretary Theresa May’s mental health changes, end the use of police bail for months or even years without judicial check and introduce sanctions on professionals, including social workers, who fail to report or take action on child abuse. Ministers are currently silent on the sentencing aspects of this bill but the manifesto promised the introduction of a new short, sharp sentence of custody for persistent offenders. The justice secretary, Michael Gove, may be looking again at this proposal. AT



Psychoactive substances bill

Legislation for a blanket ban on legal highs is to be introduced this week. It will criminalise the trade in legal highs with prison sentences of up to seven years but will not make personal possession a criminal offence. The legislation will also have to distinguish between everyday psychoactive substances such as alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, food and some medicinal products, and the new designer drugs which imitate more traditional illegal substances. This means it will be legislation to ban all psychoactive substances unless they are specifically excluded. AT



Enterprise bill

An attempt to fulfil a Conservative manifesto promise to reduce regulation on small businesses, this bill would cap redundancy pay to public sector workers and establish a small business conciliation service to handle business-to-business disputes (over things such as late payments) without involving the courts. FP



National insurance contributions bill/finance bill

The Conservatives pledged to legislate to prevent the government increasing income tax rates, VAT or national insurance for five years after the election, in a bid to put pressure on Labour over taxation. At the time, the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that the Conservatives had “boxed themselves in” by ruling out increases in Britain’s three main taxes – which raise 60% of revenues – warning that in the event of an economic downturn, they would have little room for manoeuvre in the next parliament. The bill will extend to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. FP



Personal tax allowance

Another Conservative manifesto pledge, this legislation will ensure that people working 30 hours a week on the minimum wage (currently £6.50 per hour) pay no income tax on their earnings. The legislation is designed to “ensure that future increases to the income tax personal allowance reflect changes to the national minimum wage”. The Conservatives were accused of stealing this policy from Ukip, which announced it in September 2014. FP

Energy bill



The energy bill has just two purposes: giving local communities an effective veto on new onshore windfarms, as promised in the Conservative manifesto, and changing the way the North Sea is regulated to help “maximise” the recovery of oil and gas. The speech also affirmed the UK government’s commitment to helping seal a global climate change deal at a crunch UN summit in Paris in December, which the government says is strongly in the UK’s economic and security interests. DC



Health and social care

No bill but a promise of seven-day access to the NHS in England, £8bn extra funding by 2020 and new standards for mental health services. JM

Charities (protection and social investment) bill

The bill will give the Charity Commission extra powers to shut down charities guilty of abuse or mismanagement and ban people such as criminals or terrorists from becoming charity trustees. PB

Bank of England bill

The bill will be designed to make the Bank more open and accountable and to bring together more closely its responsibilities for monetary policy, oversight of the financial system and regulation. The bill will implement the recommendations of last year’s review by former US central banker Kevin Warsh of how monetary policy is conducted. He proposed scrapping the two-week gap between an interest rate decision and the publication of minutes from the meeting, which will be more detailed. The number of monetary policy meetings will be cut from 12 a year to eight, in line with practice at the US Federal Reserve. Half of the meetings will be held jointly with the Bank’s financial policy committee, which oversees financial stability. The Bank has also proposed reform of its governing court to make it function like a public company’s board to oversee the Bank. SF



Draft public services ombudsman bill

This will merge the existing parliamentary and health service ombudsman with the local government and potentially the housing ombudsmen’s offices. The ombudsman is where members of the public can appeal over the way their complaint has been handled by local services. PB

HS2 bill

Announcing the high speed rail bill is more or less a formality – although conceivably a different government might have scrapped HS2, all major parties backed it. This is the reintroduction of the hybrid bill for the new parliament, although it was already in motion under the coalition. In effect, it grants planning permission and compulsory purchase powers for the first phase of the HS2 route from London to the West Midlands and is now about halfway through its laborious committee phase, where detailed objections from members of the public along the route are considered by MPs. The Commons has already given assent in principle and the government will be hoping for a final vote and royal assent by the end of 2016 to start digging in 2017. Legislation to build the northern part of the route is still not on the table. GT

Northern Ireland (Stormont agreement) bill

The bill will establish a historical investigations unit to look into unsolved Troubles-related deaths, whether involving criminal activity or police misconduct. It will also commit the UK government to providing any necessary information to the unit. FP

Wales bill

This bill will devolve new powers to the national assembly for Wales and the Welsh government, including areas of energy policy and transport policy. It will give the national assembly control over what it is called, its size, its electoral system and voting age. FP



Armed forces bill

This bill essentially provides the legal basis for the UK to maintain an armed forces. The 1689 Bill of Rights dictates that there needs to be an armed forces bill every five years, as it states that the keeping of an army in a time of peace is an offence “unless it be with the consent of parliament”. FP



The Queen’s speech also listed a buses bill, European Union (finance) bill, and a votes for life bill.





Reporting team: Patrick Wintour (PW), Frances Perraudin (FP), Nicholas Watt (NW), Rowena Mason (RM), Gwyn Topham (GT), Alan Travis (AT), James Meikle (JM), Patrick Butler (PB), Damian Carrington (DC), Juliette Jowit (JJ), Libby Brooks (LB), Patrick Collinson (PC), Richard Adams (RA), Sean Farrell (SF)

