LABOUR have set out their political agenda for the coming months and it is a weighty beast.
Totalling 40 bills and draft bills – not all new or original, it must be said, as in the case of the smoking ban – it is double the length of the average King’s Speech since 2010.
In a chunky briefing pack totalling 105 pages given to journalists on Wednesday morning, Scotland gets a paltry six mentions.
But much of what’s in the legislative agenda will affect Scots.
The only Scotland-specific policy per se is the creation of Great British Energy, to be headquartered in Scotland.
It seems the saga of what it actually is has concluded, with Energy Secretary Ed Miliband (below) appearing to win out over some internal rivals.
Others in Labour seemed to want it to be an “investment vehicle”, which would back private investment in green energy with public money.
But the bill sets out that it will in fact own and operate its own green energy projects.
Much as people once worked in National Coal Board pits in Midlothian, some Scots in the future may well go to their jobs at a GB Energy-owned green energy plant of some description.
Others will go to their new jobs at its headquarters, which will be based somewhere north of the Border. Where exactly remains a mystery though Inverness and Aberdeen have already put their cases to the Government.
Scottish Secretary Ian Murray hinted there had been even more interest behind the scenes, when he remarked last week they would need 72 headquarters in Scotland to satisfy everyone.
And how exactly it will bring down people’s bills, as Labour have promised, remains a mystery.
They expect that it will sell energy to the grid and increased supply should bring down prices in theory but this is not guaranteed.
Elsewhere, a package of workers’ rights reforms will extend across Great Britain. Zero hours contracts are to be banned, as is the practice of “fire and rehire”.
Workers will also be entitled to parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal from day one of starting a new job.
Other measures include strengthening protections for new mothers, making flexible working the “default” and the creation of a new body to strengthen the enforcement of workplace rights.
And the new government will pick up the old government’s smoking ban plans, saying they want to work with Scottish ministers to implement this across the UK.
In line with Rishi Sunak’s ambitions, it will ban anyone born after January 1, 2009 from ever buying cigarettes. The bill will also ban vapes from being marketed towards children.
But some of the most interesting things about the King’s Speech are what’s not in it. There are no commitments for more power to Scotland, but instead there is the creation of a new “council of nations and regions”, which brings together leaders in England with those of the devolved governments and Westminster.
Plans to reform the House of Lords have been watered-down, with a proposal to force peers to retire at 80 shelved. Plans to introduce votes at 16 have also been parked, though The National understands Labour maintain both as longer-term ambitions.
And one thing that will be weighing on the minds of many Labour MPs is the refusal to scrap the two-child benefit cap. It is a policy hated more or less throughout the party and by much of the opposition.
But Chancellor Rachel Reeves remains insistent there is no money to get rid of it.
A new child poverty taskforce might be able to more successfully make the argument that doing so is one of the easiest ways of lifting children out of poverty, when it reports back to the government.
Despite its length, the King’s Speech is fairly narrowly focused. The number of bills lumped under the heading “economy stability and growth” dwarfs all other sections.
Starmer long said Labour’s path to power ran through Scotland. In terms of pure arithmetic, that was never true, but his share of Scottish seats was a symbolic victory of the highest order for Labour.
Whether he can hold together his unwieldy Scottish coalition, which stretches from Stirling to Strathaven, will be a challenge. Doing that while keeping together his even more eclectic base in England is quite another thing.
Starmer needs to pray his gamble for growth comes off: without it, his promises of “change” ring hollow.
