The King's Speech: A reset, or a crisis?

After months of political turmoil, details of the Government’s new agenda for the coming year are beginning to emerge. The King’s Speech on May 13, complete with all the pomp and ceremony which warrants a Royal visit to Parliament, will be just the second one since the General Election.

Unfortunately for Keir Starmer, the carefully planned rollout of his refreshed agenda is being drowned out by a new round of the Mandelson scandal - one which threatens to finish off his Premiership before the King ever climbs aboard the Royal carriage.

It’s a more or less unprecedented scenario: As Field View goes to pixel, it appears plausible the Prime Minister will be forced into announcing his resignation just days before he hands King Charles a speech setting out his agenda. Were we in limbo after a General Election, the King’s Speech would simply be delayed - mid term, that’s much less practical. What else might leak over the weekend? Will the Prime Minister survive his make or break statement to MPs on Monday? What will ousted senior official Olly Robbins say about his sacking on Tuesday?

Any move to postpone will be seen as the white flag of surrender from inside No10. So the speech will likely happen - despite leaving it in the diary is like a ticking clock of constitutional uncertainty.

Leaving aside the political mess for a moment, the overall programme being briefed is wide-ranging: NHS reform, energy security, water regulation, police restructuring and asylum changes. It has the feel of a Government trying to show it's across multiple pressures at once, without setting out a new direction. The emphasis is on delivery and fixing known problems rather than anything more ambitious.

In Field’s world, the key measures look likely to be contained in a Building Safety Remediation Bill, which will continue the long-running policy response to the Grenfell Tower fire. While details are still unclear, at this stage we do expect to see the PAS 9980 standard adopted on fire risk assessments - a decision which may be controversial but is intended to be another step to unlock construction.

It reflects industry feedback has increasingly focused on how the system is working on the ground, particularly around delays, inconsistency, and the time it takes to get decisions through the Building Safety Regulator. Any legislation in this space is likely to focus on making the process run more smoothly in practice, speeding things up, reducing bottlenecks, and improving clarity for applicants.

It’s a key area and commitments in the speech will be important. Even more so will be whether the Government announcing them has the political authority to effect change.