Political Opinion: Labour has achieved so much in the last Parliamentary session

In our system, each Government’s term is divided into several parliamentary sessions, during which MPs and Lords debate and vote on proposed laws.

At the end of the session, any remaining business, such as bills that haven’t been passed yet, are dropped and at the start of a new session the King gives a speech in Parliament, setting out what the Government hopes to do in this session.

Parliament will be sitting again from May 13, but for today I’d like to look back at what the Government has achieved over this session.

Since the 2024 General Election, Labour has passed 50 Acts of Parliament, aimed at improving the lives of working people across Britain.

The very first act to be passed was the Budget Responsibility Act, which put obligations on Governments to allow full assessment of significant financial measures, to prevent ever repeating the last Government’s disastrous mini-budget.

Since then, we’ve had the Employment Rights Act, which has given workers the biggest upgrade to their rights in a generation.

This law gave the right to statutory sick pay, paternity pay and unpaid parental leave from day one of a job and greater protection for workers who report sexual harassment.

The Renters’ Rights Act is one of the most recent additions, just coming into force last week.

From now on, landlords will no longer be able to issue section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions, engage in rental bidding wars, discriminate against tenants with children or who receive benefits, or have blanket bans on pets.

In 2025, the Passenger Railway Services Act established Great British Railways (GBR).

GBR is the publicly owned railway company which will take over the operation of trains as private contracts come to an end.

For East Midlands Railways, that will be this October.

Similarly, in 2025 the Great British Energy Act set up a publicly owned company to invest in clean energy projects across Britain.

Great British Energy has already begun rolling out solar panels across schools and NHS sites.

Two Acts which are particularly close to my heart are the Crime and Policing Act and the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act.

The former is now law and will be clamping down on violence against women and girls, and retail crime.

In particular, it has made assault of shopworkers a specific offence, a measure which I have been campaigning for since 2018.

Another measure I have been pushing for, ever since I became an MP, is to make it easier for local communities to take ownership of their own assets, and the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act has delivered that.

Communities now get first refusal on buying local assets, like pubs, social hubs, and sports grounds.

That’s a lot of work done, but we won’t be resting on our laurels when Parliament returns.

There will be plenty more in the coming session to continue with our promise to deliver for the British people.

Look out for the King's speech next week to hear what's coming in the year ahead.