Though there was nothing specific for universities and the sector in the King’s Speech, there is a lot of stuff worth keeping an eye on.

Of the forty bills proposed, the Skills England Bill is the only one to deal with post-compulsory education. We learn that the new body will work with devolved government (in the form of Mayoral Combined Authorities, or MCAs) as well as with business, providers, unions, and the national government – and that it will take on many (if not all?) of the functions of the current Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE).

The key word is coherence – as we pointed out on Monday there are various arms of government involved in what we might loosely define future skills planning. This includes bits of the Department for Education, arms-length bodies like IfATE, the Migration Advisory Committee and the Home Office, and the end of the business department that deals with industrial strategy (there’ll be a new one of those too).

Key functions will include data gathering and analysis (using data – including vacancy data – to draw together an agreed single perspective on national and local skills needs), a bit of regulation (marking training as suitable for the Growth and Skills Levy that will replace the apprenticeship levy).

Though the language of devolution runs through the proposals, it will start on a very small scale. Around 62 per cent of the 2024-25 adult skills fund budget will be devolved to MCAs, compared to 60 per cent devolved to combined authorities as set out in the Skills for Jobs white paper back in 2023, though more devolution is planned in future. Even so, we don’t see a repeat of the language around support for other areas (without MCAs) from the white paper, so it is not clear what would be on offer to areas without mayors.

The English Devolution Bill might be a part of the answer. A “more ambitious standardised devolution framework” will give greater powers to more local leaders by default – including on skills and employment support – and introduce “local growth plans”. This will extend to simplifications in the process of becoming a Combined (or Combined County) Authority.

Some researchers and research managers will want to keep an eye on the Digital Information and Smart Data Bill, which could simplify data reuse consent processes in both higher education and the commercial sector. The wider bill is more aptly described as a digital government bill, featuring improvements to data collection, data use, and data safeguards (including a beefed up ICO) that can’t help but remind you of Keir Starmer’s campaign story about digitising Public Prosecutions.

Parts of the Employment Rights Bill will have a bearing on working conditions in the sector. The “new deal for working people” will ban “exploitative zero hours contracts” – though there are few of these among academics (though there are still too many!), the big impact of this (and the enhanced rights, including flexible working) will be on ancillary staff. The Bill removes the minimum service levels during industrial action, among wider updates to trade union legislation. All of this will be enforced by a new body, the Fair Work Agency. Likewise, the draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill will make the right to equal pay easier for disabled and ethnic minority workers to assert, and will introduce mandatory pay equality reporting for employers with more than 250 employees.

The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill enacts what has been described as “Martyn’s Law” – something that, in the higher education sector, will have significant implications for security requirements of university buildings and campuses.

Of significance to providers involved in teacher training, the Children’s Wellbeing Bill will return England to requiring teaching staff to hold (or to be working towards) qualified teacher status. This closes a 2010 loophole introduced by Michael Gove, that ended the requirement for academies and free schools to use only qualified teachers.

This parliament will see a new Renters’ Rights Bill which could finally address some of the problems and inequalities experienced by students in rented accommodation. Some of these protections featured in initial drafts of the last government’s abandoned Renters Reform Bill.