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The King's Speech 2024
The House of Commons is going to be a very busy place in the months ahead if The King’s Speech is anything to go by. Alongside nearly forty new bills and some reforms of existing legislation the speech signalled the setting up of a number of new public bodies and various consultations and reviews. All that before the usual catch-all of ‘other measures will be laid before you.’
Many of the measures such as opening up areas of the country for house building, imposing VAT on school fees, and the gradual re-nationalisation of the railways were flagged up well in advance. Others, such as the establishment of an independent football regulator came as more of a surprise. Some of the measures such as restricting the sale of cigarettes echo the policies of the previous Government.
Drilling down into the finance and investment aspects of the speech, the first action on the list is a Budget Responsibility Bill. This is intended to ensure that “any Government making significant and permanent tax and spending changes will be subject to an independent assessment by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).” It is hoped this will prevent uncosted measures from being announced without the impact on public finances being considered.
Another Bill aims to align the existing work of the UK Infrastructure Bank and the British Business Bank under one umbrella National Wealth Fund. With additional investment required if the Government is to meet some of its growth and clean ambitions, the hope is that by closer aligning existing investment structures additional funds can be generated.
A Pension Schemes Bill builds on existing plans to streamline and improve pension access and outcomes. There is nothing new about the idea of pension consolidation, bringing multiple pensions into one pot. The new bill sets this out for defined contribution pots as well as ensuring that trust based defined contribution schemes will have to meet a value test which is consistent across the whole market.
The defined benefit scheme market will also be shaken up with a view to consolidate closed legacy schemes into a number of commercial ‘superfunds.’ Pension schemes will also be required to offer a range of retirement solutions, including default investment options to their members.
As with all legislation the ‘devil is in the detail.’ We will report further on bills that may impact on investment or pension plans as they progress through Parliament.
The speech, together with more information on the proposed bills, can be found here:
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