The King’s Speech 2023 has been delivered, with His Majesty briefly mentioning housing.

According to King Charles III: “My ministers will bring forward a bill to reform the housing market by making it cheaper and easier for leaseholders to purchase their freehold and tackling the exploitation of millions of homeowners through punitive service charges.”

The King added: “Renters will benefit from stronger security of tenure and better value, while landlords will benefit from reforms to provide certainty that they can regain their properties when needed.”

A forthcoming leasehold and freehold bill will forbid leaseholds for new houses – but not new flats – in England and Wales, and increase the standard lease extension period to 990 years.

Meanwhile, the Renters (Reform) Bill will ban “no-fault” evictions in England, but only after reforms to the court system.

Plans mooted by the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, to criminalise the use of tents by homeless people were dropped at the last minute.

Reacting to the speech, Matt Downie, the Chief Executive of homelessness charity Crisis, said: “We’re pleased that the government appears to have listened to the concerns raised by the homelessness sector and wider public, and is reconsidering the hugely damaging proposals to criminalise the use of tents by people sleeping rough. As we have said time and time again, these punitive laws cause untold harm to some of the most marginalised people in society and only serve to push them further away from crucial help.

“Only last year, the government committed in law to repeal the Vagrancy Act. It’s vital it does so, instead of trying to bring back this cruel legislation by the back door.

“Energy must now be spent on introducing the solutions we know will end homelessness. These include unfreezing housing benefit at the Autumn Statement and funding programmes like Housing First which would mean no-one would be forced to sleep rough in the first place.

“The government has presided over rising homelessness. It now has a choice to make on whether it implements the policies that will start to turn the tide.”

Kevin Edwards, Legal Director in Birrkett’s Social Housing Team, said: “While reform of leasehold is to be applauded, we would argue that it would be just as prudent to introduce proper regulation of the private rented sector – something which is conspicuously absent from proposed reforms to date. The Private Rented Ombudsman is a useful tool, but only relates to disputes and so is reactive not proactive. This means that it still relies on tenants being aware of it and willing to raise disputes in the first place.

“The Regulator of Social Housing performs an admirable function in the social rented sector of proactive regulation and is powerful and respected because its judgements mean something and have an impact on providers. A similarly powerful regulator in the private sector should be created, along with a framework of requirements for landlords, including a formula for rent in that sector, to tackle the main issues of substandard accommodation and out of control rents. This could incorporate the proposed “Decent Homes Standard” for the private sector (as detailed in the government’s “Levelling Up” white paper in 2022) as a basis. This would arguably lead to a great deal of issues being resolved without such drastic recourse as abolition of the majority of leasehold ownerships.

“Above all else, given the current severe shortage of affordable accommodation in England, the reforms proposed in today’s speech must also be enacted in such a way as not to disrupt the affordable housing supply. This supply is already facing unprecedented demands on resources in the face of spiralling build and contractor costs, the zero-carbon agenda and retrofitting, poor quality inherited stock and increased borrowing costs. Any reform must look to take account of the importance of Shared Ownership to that sector, and the severe impact its loss would have on housing supply for those most in need.”

Elsewhere, the speech, which was written by the government, revealed that a planned sentencing bill will require whole-life sentences for the worst murders, mean rapists cannot be released early, and make it more likely short sentences for lesser crimes are served in the community.

Meanwhile, a new criminal justice bill will bring in rules to force criminals to appear in court during sentencing, while the police will be given the power enter buildings without a warrant to seize stolen goods.

In the areas of environment and energy, North Sea oil and gas licences will be awarded annually, under the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, and a new animal welfare bill will ban the export of cattle from the UK for fattening and slaughter.

In the areas of technology and media, the speech revealed that a forthcoming automated vehicles bill will build a legal framework for self-driving cars, while the Media Bill, published in draft form earlier this year, will do away with a never-enacted rule forcing media companies to pay the legal bills of people who sue them, even if they win.

Additionally, another new bill will push for a phased ban on smoking and bring in restrictions around the packaging and marketing of vapes. Meanwhile, a regulator for the top five tiers of English professional football will be established by the Football Governance Bill.

You can read all of the speech here.