Many measures in the King’s Speech have a strong focus on children’s wellbeing, and other pieces of proposed legislation present opportunities to focus on children’s rights.
While there were many measures relating to children, two key manifesto commitments were not featured in the speech: increasing access to early years education by opening 3,300 new nurseries in schools, and lowering the voting age to 16.
Below is a summary of proposals and legislation relating to children in the 2024 King’s Speech. The full governmental background briefing on the proposals in the King’s Speech can be found here.
Children’s Wellbeing Bill
The proposed Children’s Wellbeing Bill will put a welcome focus on education, with some minor support for the children’s social care system, by:
- requiring all schools to cooperate with the local authority on school admissions, SEND inclusion, and place planning, by giving local authorities greater powers to help them deliver their functions on school admissions and ensure admissions decisions account for the needs for communities
- creating a duty on local authorities to have and maintain Children Not in School registers
- providing support to home-educating parents
- Strengthening multi-agency child protection and safeguarding arrangements
- requiring free breakfast clubs in every primary school
- introducing legislation to limit the number of branded items of uniform and PE kits that a school can require
- making changes to the legislation about regulating and inspecting independent schools
- requiring all maintained and academy schools to teach the national curriculum, after reviewing curriculum and assessment standards
- ensuring any new teacher entering the classroom has, or is working towards, Qualified Teacher Status (QTS)
- giving school support staff a national voice in the setting of their pay and conditions
- making changes to enable serious teacher misconduct to be investigated, regardless of when the misconduct occurred, the setting the teacher is employed in, and how the misconduct is uncovered
- bringing multi-academy trusts into the inspection system
Tobacco and Vapes Bill, and other children’s health measures
A Bill will be introduced to:
- progressively increase the age at which people can buy cigarettes
- stop vapes and other consumer nicotine products (such as nicotine pouches) from being deliberately branded and advertised to appeal to children.
- prevent underage sales of tobacco and vapes by providing enforcement authorities in England and Wales with the power to issue Fixed Penalty Notices for the underage sale of tobacco and vaping products.
There are also plans to legislate to restrict advertising of junk food to children along with the sale of high caffeine energy drinks to children.
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
A Bill will be introduced to modernise the asylum and immigration system, establishing a new Border Security Command and extending the use of counter terror powers to tackle organised immigration crime. The Bill will:
- introduce measures to clear the asylum backlog
- fast-track returns for individuals coming from countries deemed by the government to be safe
- end the Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda
- create a new Border Security Command
- give new tools and powers to law enforcement
- strengthen powers for law enforcement officers to investigate involvement in organised immigration crime for example in stopping and searching at the border
- strengthen penalties in place against a range of organised immigration crime and border criminality
- introduce preparatory offences such as enabling the advertising the services of a migrant smuggling group and precursor offences such as relating to the supply of materials needed to facilitate organised crime gangs
The majority of people claiming asylum in the UK since March 2023 have been barred from being granted refugee status, no matter how strong their claim. Despite calls to exempt children from this at the time of the passage of the Illegal Migration Bill, children are not exempted from this and many thousands of children including unaccompanied children are trapped in limbo, including in hotels where they have insufficient access to education, space, and services which would promote their wellbeing. We welcome any measures taken to restore the effectiveness of the asylum system while protecting and promoting children’s rights.
Previous measures to increase the securitisation of the border and criminalise people involved in small boat crossings have led to the routine criminalisation of children. This Bill is an opportunity to reverse this injustice, and we will be scrutinising the new powers as they are introduced.
Digital Information and Smart Data Bill
This Bill will enable new uses of data to be developed and deployed, and will apply new data sharing methods and standards to public services. In particular, it will seek to:
- give the Information Commissioner’s Office new, stronger powers and a more modern structure
- establish Digital Verification Services including when buying age-restricted goods
- targeted reforms to data laws that apply to scientific research
- promote standards for digital identities around privacy, security and inclusion
- establish a Data Preservation Process that coroners (and procurators fiscal in Scotland) can initiate when they decide it is necessary and appropriate to support their investigations into a child’s death
The broadening of the uses of digital identities and their uses in public services must only happen in parallel with the strengthening of standards on privacy, security and inclusion. Digital verification services offer an opportunity to protect children in the digital sphere, but pose their own risks. Age verification, which refers to the process of determining someone’s age by checking against trusted data, poses a threat to privacy. However, this is often conflated with other ‘age assurance’ measures such as AI-driven age estimation, which makes use of special category biometric data and which, through profiling, poses significant risk of bias, discrimination and inaccuracy. As Digital Verification Services are expanded, the ICO should be given greater powers to enforce the measures in its Children’s Code and to drive good practice.
Renters’ Rights Bill
The Renters’ Rights Bill aims to overhaul the private rented sector by:
- abolishing Section 21 ‘no fault evictions’, while introducing new and expanded possession grounds for landlords
- strengthening tenants’ rights and protections in such areas as rent increases, rental bidding wars, and the right to request a pet
- applying a Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector
- new legal expectations about the timeframes within which landlords in the private rented sector must make homes safe where they contain serious hazards
- creating a digital private rented sector database to bring together key information for landlords, tenants, and councils
- supporting quicker, cheaper dispute resolution and a new ombudsman service, preventing the widespread use of courts proceedings
- making it illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants in receipt of benefits or with children when choosing to let their property
- introducing new investigatory powers for councils to identify and fine landlords in breach of their obligations
The English housing survey 2021-22 showed that a growing proportion of households in the UK are in the private rented sector (19% in 2021-22 as opposed to 17% in 2011-12), and that one in four private rental agreements are for families with children. Nearly one half of all families in private rental accommodation are in receipt of housing support, and 73% of all single parents in rental accommodation receive housing support. As such, measures make it illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants in receipt of benefits, as well as measures preventing landlords from discriminating against families with children, stand to fundamentally improve children’s wellbeing.
Crime and Policing Bill
Amongst other measures, the Crime and Policing Bill aims to protect children by:
- reducing knife crime through banning the sale of certain categories of blades, and introducing sanctions on senior executives of online companies selling them who fail to comply with the law
- strengthening the law to tackle those who exploit children for criminal purposes
- creating arrangements for local Young Futures prevention partnerships to bring together services to support at-risk teenagers
The focus on children vulnerable to criminal exploitation must be holistic. In England in 2022/23 14,420 children were identified by Children in Need assessments as being at risk of, or a victim of, criminal exploitation; while 11,100 assessments recorded that a child was part of a street or organised crime gang.
Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill
Amongst other measures, the Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill seeks to automatically restrict the exercise of parental responsibility for child sex offenders.
Mental Health Bill
The King’s Speech included the statement that will the Mental Health Bill will seek to reduce waiting times, focus on prevention and improve mental health provision for young people. These are welcome aims, but the detail published alongside the King’s Speech does not include any concrete measures to achieve them.
