Keir Starmer’s stack of unfinished business

LONDON — School’s out.

Five peers have doffed their ceremonial caps in the House of Lords, officially “proroguing” Keir Starmer’s first session of parliament nearly 22 months after he took over as Britain’s prime minister.

His government has passed flagship legislation on workers’ and renters’ rights, home-grown energy and planning laws — but been buffeted by events. A revolt by Labour MPs forced Starmer into scrapping a two-child limit on welfare benefits, while the threatened closure of a British Steel site brought MPs in to legislate on a Saturday.

That’s before you even start on the churn of senior No. 10 staff, the scandal over appointing Peter Mandelson as Britain’s U.S. ambassador, constant leadership chatter and U-turns over financial measures including cuts to pensioners’ winter fuel payments. 

So Starmer could be forgiven for leaving a few things on the cutting room floor.

The next king’s speech is on May 13, and is expected to lay out around 30 to 32 bills containing the second stage of the center-left Labour Party’s legislative agenda.

It is normal for some legislation to “carry over” from the last session of parliament to the next, or for policy problems to be unresolved — but some of Starmer’s unfinished business is a big deal.

POLITICO whips through eight legislative issues that didn’t quite work out as planned the first time round.

1) Welfare reform

The surging cost of welfare benefits is looming over the U.K. economy. While Labour did not put reforms in its first king’s speech, ministers tried to cut disability payments anyway last summer — but were forced to compromise under huge pressure from Labour MPs.

What happens next will hinge on two reviews: one by ex-minister Alan Milburn into the rise of under-25s not in employment, education or training, and a separate review by Disability Minister Stephen Timms into Personal Independent Payments (PIP) for sick and disabled people regardless of whether they work. Government officials insist they are still committed to reforming both systems before the next general election due in 2029.

Milburn’s review is due to report back at the end of this summer and Timms’ is due in the fall. That means welfare reform is unlikely to be given a fixed bill in the May 13 king’s speech, but will be on the agenda all the same.

Tension will be felt between the Treasury, Department for Work and Pensions and Starmer’s MPs, who all have ideas about the best way to balance spending cuts against reform. 

People protest in Downing Street, London, ahead of last year’s Budget on Nov. 25, 2025. | Kymberley Apiro/Getty Images

Chancellor Rachel Reeves initially hoped for nearly £10 billion of savings from the welfare changes last year, said two people with knowledge of the discussions granted anonymity to speak frankly, before the ask settled at £5 billion (and even that forced a U-turn). 

Timms’ review has also made several promises about co-producing reforms with MPs, boxing in how far it can go. One of the two people added: “If you’re going to do proper, meaningful welfare reform, it’s not going to make [financial] savings in the short term.”

2) Social media restrictions for under-16s

The government has softened on the idea of social media restrictions for under-16s after simultaneous pressure from its own MPs, the Conservative opposition and Tory, Liberal Democrat and Crossbench peers in the House of Lords.

Labour never wanted to legislate on the issue in this parliamentary session, but has made compromises after it became tangled up in the wider Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Ministers opened a consultation in March that did not rule out a full Australian-style ban (it will close on May 26), and agreed last-minute changes in order to pass the bill just in time. Those include promising that there will be “some form of age or functionality” restrictions for under-16s, regardless of the outcome of the consultation, and squeezing the time limit for changes from three years to 21 months.

What these restrictions look like will be a key question. Conservative peer John Nash had wanted a ban on “harmful algorithmic addictive features” or those that “expose children to serious loss of privacy or contact with strangers,” which the government rejected.

“The reason we got a consultation was because of pressure around this bill,” argued one Conservative official, while a Labour official accused unelected peers of “anti-democratic shilly-shallying” after the bill took 16 months to pass.

In another climbdown, ministers also agreed last week to ban smartphones across English schools despite having long argued that existing non-statutory guidance was enough. That will now need to be put into action.  

3) Scrapping some jury trials

Plans to scrap jury trials for many lower-level cases in England — in a bid to curb huge court backlogs — will be carried over to the next session and are expected to return to MPs before their summer recess.

The Courts and Tribunals Bill is due to reach “report stage” in the Commons where MPs can debate any amendments. One government official described this as a “moment of maximum danger” for Starmer’s administration, as it will test the size of a Labour revolt.

Last time only 10 Labour MPs rebelled, including ex-barrister Karl Turner, who later had the whip suspended — but a far larger number did not vote. 

Some officials believe the issue could become a proxy vote on Starmer’s authority if he is vulnerable after the May elections. In the worst case scenario for Justice Secretary David Lammy, a serious revolt could lead to the section of the bill on jury trials being deleted.

U.K. Justice Secretary David Lammy reacts to journalists’ questions, Downing Street, Feb. 9, 2026. | Leon Neal/Getty Images

Lammy will then have to decide whether to dig in. A Ministry of Justice official said: “If the structural reforms set out in the Courts and Tribunals Bill are not implemented we will face an existential threat to justice in Britain. Ministers continue to work closely with parliamentarians to ensure the Bill is as robust as possible.”

4) The Hillsborough Law rumbles on

Starmer told Labour’s conference in 2022: “One of my first acts as prime minister will be to put the Hillsborough Law on the statute book.”

Yet three and a half years later the proposed law — ensuring a “duty of candour” on public officials to prevent cover-ups, like the one after Liverpool football fans died in a 1989 crowd crush at Sheffield’s Hillsborough Stadium — remains gummed up in controversy.

The Public Office (Accountability) Bill ran out of time before prorogation and its Commons report stage will happen after the king’s speech.

The key question will be the wording of a government amendment on how the duty applies to Britain’s security services, which would have originally been given a carve-out.

Starmer sided with Hillsborough campaigners in recent weeks and agreed to scrap a blanket carve-out — despite private concerns from the Home Office, Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence, a person familiar with the bill said.

But the government amendment that will result from his decision has still not been published and campaigners are still concerned that they will be short-changed. Any wording will have to be acceptable enough to both sides. If it has to be approved again by the full Cabinet, internal tension will return.

One Labour official pointed out that the party conference is in Liverpool again this year. “Nobody wants to go to Liverpool in September not having this done,” they said.

5) Troubles trouble in Northern Ireland

Ministers are also carrying over the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, which aims to reshape the legal framework around the thorny legacy of decades of killings by soldiers and paramilitaries.

Labour’s attempts to replace a previous legacy act that was introduced by the Conservatives have been slowed down by arguments over the detail.

MPs have already approved a remedial order to repeal the old regime, which will scrap immunity from prosecution and reinstate the right to pursue civil cases. It will be put before the House of Lords for a final vote after a Supreme Court ruling that is expected soon.

But the bill to establish a new regime will run slower. It will likely return for its Commons committee stage before the summer recess, where an official familiar with it said the government is expected to propose a substantial package of amendments to address concerns by MPs — some of them ex-military servicepeople on Labour benches.

Family members and supporters of those killed in the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre hold photos of those killed as they walk toward Belfast Crown Court, Northern Ireland, on Oct. 23, 2025. | Paul Faith/AFP via Getty Images

Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Alex Burghart has said the bill is “stuck in a legislative purgatory,” while Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn said this week: “If dealing with legacy was easy, this aim of the Good Friday agreement would have been resolved a long time ago. It is not easy; it is very difficult.”

6) Changes to democracy

Labour had also long planned to carry over its Representation of the People Bill, which aims to lower the voting age from 18 to 16, ban cryptocurrency donations to political parties and cap political donations from Brits overseas at £100,000 per year.

While ministers argue the changes will strengthen democratic accountability, opponents — especially in the right-wing Reform UK, which has accepted millions of pounds from the Thai-based crypto tycoon Christopher Harborne — argue they are geared to the ruling party’s political advantage.

There is also a continuing debate within Labour over how to deal with past changes to the system under the Tories — such as imposing mandatory ID checks on voters — and whether to tweak those policies as part of the bill.

7) Tensions over pensions

Here’s one thing, at least, that is no longer unfinished. The Pension Schemes Bill (which aims to drag the British retirement system into the 21st century) was finally granted royal assent on Wednesday — but only after several defeats in the House of Lords and a tussle with the industry.

While MPs drank to the end of the session on Tuesday night, Treasury Minister Torsten Bell announced a major concession — watering down the “reserve power” of any future government to mandate where pension funds should invest a minimum proportion of their assets.

The reserve power will now be limited to 10 percent of assets, will be removed from law in 2032, and there are even more tramlines that limit the ability to make it happen. 

Bell repeatedly promised he was unlikely to ever use the power, and that it was only a “backstop” to push the industry to keep their promise to invest in more equities through the Mansion House Accord.

A government official also insisted ministers never intended to go beyond 10 percent if it was used, a figure agreed by the pensions industry itself — indicating that officials were holding a compromise in reserve. But one minister conceded it had been “gutted” compared to the original plans.

8) Chagos handover

Starmer’s plans to hand Mauritius sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, a remote but militarily vital archipelago in the Indian Ocean, are essentially frozen after Donald Trump belatedly attacked the plan.

It will not be carried over to the next king’s speech and unless the U.S. administration changes its mind, it does not appear to be on the agenda any time soon. “It seems like it’s done,” said one U.K. government official. That could leave open the question of the islands’ legal status if the government does not act.

And the rest …

A whole host of other massive government plans will either make appearances in the king’s speech or remain unfinished in some other way.

They range from social care reform — still trundling through cross-party talks — to forthcoming bills on the controversial issues of tightening migration rules, restructuring police forces, introducing digital ID, and reforming the health system and water industry.

There will be a bill on financial services in the king’s speech too, along with one on energy infrastructure — which could attract all manner of amendments from Labour’s opponents on extracting North Sea oil and gas.