State opening of parliament 2026: experts on plans for cost of living, EU ties, tourist tax and more

Posted on 13 May 2026 • Arts and social sciences, Society and politics

The government has set out its legislative agenda for the new parliamentary session in the king’s speech. Our panel of experts reveals the key points.

Measures to ease high living costs

Jonquil Lowe, Visiting Academic, The Open University

Surveys suggest that the cost of living is still a major concern for UK households, with energy and food prices topping the list of worries. In response, some campaigners have called on the government to use the energy independence bill announced in the king’s speech to break the link between electricity and gas prices and volatile global gas prices. And they want it to provide support, especially for low-income households, to switch away from heating homes with fossil fuels.

Among other measures, the bill aims to ensure landlords upgrade their properties to reduce tenants’ energy bills. These kinds of measure need to be introduced urgently if they are to save households from heftier energy bills expected this winter.

Other cost-of-living reliefs are welcome, although their impact may be small. For example, a move to “strengthen ties with Europe” may ease food inflation by reducing red tape and border checks on some imported foods.

The leasehold and commonhold reform bill (carried over from the previous parliamentary session) will help owners of leasehold flats and houses by capping ground rents at £250 a year, and then reducing them to a negligible amount after 40 years. Meanwhile, the social housing renewal bill aims to increase the stock of affordable social homes.

Plans to make it easier to align UK law with EU agreements

Simon Usherwood, Professor of Politics & International Studies, The Open University

For all the talk from Prime Minister Keir Starmer of putting the UK at “the heart of Europe”, the proposed European Partnership Bill is a relatively modest and technical move. It would give the government powers to make adjustments to domestic legislation to ensure it complies with agreements being made with the EU. This would apply to those currently under negotiation (like youth mobility, food and veterinary standards, or emissions trading) or those that might be considered in future.

This streamlines a process that would have been necessary in any case, and remains reliant on those EU deals actually being struck. So there’s nothing particularly remarkable about the content. However, the repeated mention of “where it benefits the national interest” highlights how the government is trying to package this as something more.

Decisions about when to align are necessarily attached to decisions to sign up to deals with the EU, not to whether to make the domestic adjustments (which international law would consider to be an obligation). Much like Starmer’s flowery rhetoric in his speech on Monday, the substance doesn’t really match up.

Read the full article on The Conversation

Picture Credit: AXP Photography