• What are the significant new bills highlighted in the King’s Speech?

• Which legacy bills from the previous administration will the government revisit?

• How long is the current parliamentary session expected to last?

• Why is the government using a statutory instrument for early prisoner release to manage prison overcrowding?

• Why hasn’t the Government introduced the proposed 80-year age cap for House of Lords members?

• How will the Labour government handle potential rebellions and dissent among backbench MPs?

• What roles and challenges do the new MPs elected in the 2024 general election face?

Hansard Society

• Back to Business guide: State Opening of Parliament and King's Speech

• How does Parliament approve Government spending? A procedural guide to the Estimates process

• Democratic decision-making in health emergencies: Learning the lessons of the Covid pandemic - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 37

• Who will be the stars of the new Parliament? - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 40

UK Covid-19 Inquiry

• Module 1 Report - The resilience and preparedness of the United Kingdom

Independent Commission on UK Public Health Emergency Powers

• Final Report, May 2024

Please note, this transcript is automatically generated. There are consequently minor errors and the text is not formatted according to our style guide. If you wish to reference or cite the transcript copy below, please first check against the audio version above. Timestamps are provided above each paragraph.

00:00:02:07 - 00:00:16:09 You're listening to Parliament matters, a Hansard society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk/pm. 00:00:16:11 - 00:00:40:02 Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox and I'm Mark D'Arcy. Coming up, the legislative sausage machine cranks into action and there are big new bills on planning and devolution to galvanize the economy. What will it be like for generation 2024 as the new MPs get down to work. And managing a mega majority? 00:00:40:08 - 00:00:52:00 What lessons can Labour learn from the Blair years? Parliamentary rebellions expert Phil Cowley weighs in. 00:00:52:02 - 00:01:15:11 But first, Ruth, we've got to talk about the King's Speech. 36 bills, plus four draft bills. It's a big programme. It's going to be a lot of work for the House of Commons and the House of Lords over the next few months, but it's not unprecedentedly big. No, I mean, it's at the higher end of the spectrum in recent years, but you can go back to 2005 after the election. 00:01:15:11 - 00:01:32:01 Then there were high number of bills, 40 odd, but it is a lot. It will be a hard grind over the course of the session. Interestingly, we don't know how long the session will be. The government hasn't said. Lucy Powell, the leader of the House of Commons, has intimated in some press appearances yesterday that it could be 18 months, possibly longer. 00:01:32:01 - 00:01:54:15 So we'll have to see. But there is a lot to get your teeth into. There's some big political bills which will come on to, but there's also, interestingly, quite a number of bills that the previous government didn't get through when it called the election. And the government's revisiting some of those. It's rebranding some of them. It'll no doubt amend some of them and bring them back in slightly different form, but essentially to achieve the same objectives.