Everything that is now officially law after bill-passing bonanza yesterday

As of yesterday afternoon, Parliament is officially prorogued and MPs are dashing back to their constituencies for the final week of campaigning ahead of the May 7 elections.

Prorogation means all the work of the House of Commons and House of Lords is until the King’s speech kicks off a new parliamentary session in a couple of weeks.

So far, so formal – but in practice, this means a furious effort to get bills through the final stages of the legislative process and turn them into laws.

Any proposals that are still not settled when prorogation takes place will fall, meaning the government, MPs and peers have to start from scratch once the new session begins if they want them to go ahead.

That’s what has happened to Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, better known as the assisted dying bill. The House of Lords didn’t work out the kinks in time, so all progress has been lost.

But several other top government bills that still were floating in limbo yesterday were considered too important to risk losing.

That meant Wednesday became a bill-passing bonanza, with no fewer than nine new laws being granted royal assent. Here are the top ones you should know about, and what they will do.

Crime and Policing Act

This is one of the biggest bills introduced by the Labour government in its first stretch in Parliament, with the final form considered by the Lords running to a whopping 574 pages.

There are 17 parts, dealing with issues as diverse as knife crime, creepy AI tools, and shoplifting.

Among the most groundbreaking measures are criminalising the creation of child sexual abuse images with AI – the UK is the first country in the world to do so – and decriminalising abortion in England and Wales.

Find more details about this major new legislation in our explainer here.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act

Labour has said this legislation will ‘remove barriers to opportunity in schools and improve the education system to make it safer for every child’.

Some of the measures it includes are ensuring schools in England offer free breakfast clubs and limiting branded items in school uniform.

On the ‘wellbeing’ side of the equation, the law will require the creation of multi-agency child protection teams.

Much of the attention on this bill was focused on efforts by the House of Lords to introduce an amendment restricting the use of social media by under-16s – the government has committed to change after a consultation.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act

The government has spoken a lot about decentralising power from Westminster, and this law forms a big part of that effort.

It introduces into law the idea of ‘Strategic Authorities’, consisting of several councils working together under an elected mayor with devolved powers over areas like transport and housing.

On a smaller scale, a new Community Right to Buy will mean local people get first right of refusal for valued community assets that go on sale.

And councils will be able to prevent the spread of gambling shops on local high streets through the use of Gambling Impact Assessments.

Tobacco and Vapes Act

This legislation covers various issues relating to smoking, from controlling advertising and promotion to introducing new smoke-free places.

But the main measure people will associate it with is the ban on selling tobacco products, herbal cigarettes, and cigarette papers to anyone born after January 1 2009.

This idea was first introduced under the Conservatives, but it has now become official under the Labour government which says it will create a healthier ‘smoke-free generation’.

Critics such as Nigel Farage argue it will be unenforceable, particularly as people born after that date get older.

Victims and Courts Act

With the Victims and Courts Act, courts will be able to order criminals to attend their sentencing hearings – a measure known as Olivia’s Law after Olivia Pratt-Korbel who was shot in her home in 2022.

The nine-year-old’s killer Thomas Cashman refused to leave his cell for his sentencing, leading Olivia’s mum Cheryl Korbel to campaign for a change in the law.

Meanwhile, victims who don’t feel a sentence fits the crime they’ve suffered will get six months to refer it to the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme – rather than the 28 days they currently have.

And the new law also means non-disclosure agreements can no longer stop victims from whistleblowing criminal conduct to anyone for any reason.

The other laws to be granted royal assent on Wednesday were the Grenfell Tower Memorial (Expenditure) Act, the Ministerial Salaries (Amendment) Act, the National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Act, and the Pension Schemes Act.

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