What comes next?

With a General Election in just over a week Connect Group's Senior Counsel (and former Special Adviser), Harry Methley, looks at what to expect over the next couple of weeks.

Barring something truly exceptional, or a major miscalculation by the pollsters, Keir Starmer will become Prime Minister next week.

So if the polls are right, and we wake up to a Labour landslide on 5th July, what happens next?

First and foremost, the current Prime Minister needs to resign. It is likely he will travel to see the King with his family and then tender his resignation. Sir Keir will then have an audience with the King (for the purpose of this piece, let us assume he will win) who will ask him to form an administration.

It’s expected the new Prime Minister will then return to Downing Street and address the country for the first time. Arguably, this speech is more important than any Starmer has made to date. It must capture the mood of the nation, set out a vision and strategy and give direction to the thousands of civil servants who now work for him. Indeed, Theresa May’s first speech as PM on the ‘Burning Injustices’ was printed and framed in No10 Downing Street as a reminder to all of the mission of the Government.

Following applause and welcomes from the No.10 staff, it is straight into business.

First comes matters of national security with briefings from the security services and the military on our nuclear deterrent and signing the Letters of Last Resort.

Then it is time to appoint the Cabinet. There are two initial questions. Will Starmer seek to make any immediate machinery of government changes, and will it be a case of appointing the Shadow Cabinet to Cabinet, or will there be any surprises??

There have been reports that Starmer is considering creating an 'Executive Cabinet', 'Mission Boards' and a new 'Policy Delivery Unit'. Many of these recommendations came from a report by the Institute for Government which also proposed the creation of a Department of the Prime Minister and a separate Department for the Civil Service alongside a ‘modernised’ King’s Speech. Machinery of Government changes like this are complex and expensive – but if Starmer wants to take the opportunity to rewire Whitehall to deliver on his missions, now will be the time to do it.

If the 'Mission Boards' adopt a similar approach taken by the Brexit Cabinet Committees (XO – Exit Operations) and (XS – Exit Strategy), they can really deliver and drive rapid policy and operational progress across Whitehall, but if they are simply re-branded cabinet committees, they will remain talking shops that fail to effectively make decisions.

What all this means in practice and if there are any wider changes to government departments will soon be clear.

Turning to Cabinet – it is likely almost all of Starmer’s current Shadow Cabinet are re-elected (the Greens are, however, certainly confident of unseating Thangam Debbonaire in Bristol, who is Labour’s Shadow Culture Secretary). There are likely to be a number of Labour MPs elected, who have previous Cabinet or ministerial experience and Starmer will have to make a call on who he wants in his first administration – does he reward loyalty and hard work over the last few years or does he promote some of those who have experience in government – which is very lacking in Labour’s current ministerial team? The Junior Ministerial appointments are likely to take longer, and it is expected policy priorities and portfolios within departments will take a few weeks to finalise and settle.

It’s likely Starmer’s key political appointees know which jobs they are getting – certainly in the transition between Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, an organogram of political appointments was shared with officials to help with preparations. But there are some big unknowns here; what role for Sue Gray, does she take the Political Chief of Staff role as previously occupied by Jonathan Powell and Ed Lewellyn, or does she seek something different? Secondly, there have been reports that Simon Case is unlikely to remain as Cabinet Secretary, but it is unclear how quickly Starmer will seek to replace him.

The next few days and the weekend will undoubtedly focus on process stories, but there is always a chance Labour makes a big policy announcement before the State opening – such as the Bank of England Independence announcement in 1997.

There is a strategic question here for the new government, do they continue the approach of the last two decades, feeding a ‘big’ story each day from the government grid to the hungry Westminster lobby or does the new No. 10 try a different approach of moving from an aggressive day-to-day campaign, to a slower steadier style of government. After all, as Starmer said in October: "We should never forget that?politics?should?tread?lightly on people's lives".

After his first weekend as Prime Minister – attention will turn to Parliament, where Tuesday 9th July will see the election of the Speaker and the swearing-in of members. The State Opening will follow a week later on Wednesday 17th July. Starmer will likely also head to the 2024 NATO Summit which takes place from 9th to 11th July in Washington.

At the King’s Speech we will then get more information on Labour’s legislative programme, and there is talk of three bills Labour wants to swiftly introduce to Parliament. There is also a question about the decision Labour makes on recess, it seems unlikely they will stick to the dates which were agreed by the previous Conservative Government, but are likely to also want to give exhausted candidates a break at some point over the summer.?

Labour will quickly want to deliver a Budget, however Rachel Reeves has said she won’t deliver one until she has the OBR’s independent forecast which she confirmed they need 10 weeks’ notice? to prepare, and with Departments not knowing their budgets from April 2025 there needs to be a Spending Review – we can expect the Treasury to set the dates of both of these events?fairly swiftly.

Elsewhere in Whitehall, Labour’s late take up of access talks means officials are still working to piece together exact policy proposals, and it is inevitable there will be lots of consultation (and opportunity for engagement) on Labour’s plans.

There are, no doubt, other areas of focus - Select Committees, the resulting opposition leadership election and its fallout – but the next few weeks’ focus is undoubtedly going to be on Starmer and his new administration. The priorities and decisions he makes in this early weeks will be crucial in establishing the direction of travel for the next five years.