May 13 (UPI) — King Charles III set out the British government’s legislative program at the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday, focusing on expediting new agreements on closer U.K.-EU economic ties, tackling the cost of living, boosting defense AI and tech innovation and easing financial sector regulation.

The king’s 17-minute speech in the House of Lords referenced 37 bills in total, including legislation to renationalize British Steel, a Competition Reform Bill to fast-track reviews by the competition watchdog and a bill to help small businesses by hiking the interest suppliers can charge clients that fail to pay on time.

Charles opened his address with the geopolitical situation, saying Britain faced threats from an “increasingly dangerous and volatile world,” with the conflict in the Middle East the most recent example, and warned every “element of the nation’s energy, defense and economic security” would be challenged.

Honing in on the economy, Charles said the government would harness the power of the state “in partnership with business and enable reforms that support higher growth and a fair deal for working people.”

“My Government believes that the United Kingdom’s economic security depends on raising living standards in every part of the United Kingdom. My Ministers will support measures that maintain stability and control the cost of living. They will use public investment to shape markets and attract further private investment,” he said.

The speech pledged progress on airport expansion and highway infrastructure projects and a Northern Powerhouse Rail program to better connect the big cities in the north with each other and the rest of the country, along with reforms to the police, National Health Service and criminal justice system.

An immigration and asylum bill was also promised to help tackle the issue of migrants and asylum seekers arriving on small boats.

One issue that received no mention was cutting welfare spending, an area where the Labour administration of Prime Minister Keir Starmer has twice been forced to back down in the face of his own MPs since coming into office in 2024.

While the address is called The King’s Speech, it is purely ceremonial with the speech actually given to him by the government to read out.

It was Charles’ third time to open parliament, a historic tradition that dates back to the 16th century as a way to periodically bring together three normally separate elements of British polity: the democratically elected members of the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Crown.

The proceedings include Buckingham Palace taking an MP “hostage” to ensure the king is returned unharmed and a “search” of the basements of the Palace of Westminister for dynamite by the King’s ceremonial Yeomen bodyguards, a throwback to the gunpowder plot to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on Nov. 5, 1605.

Wednesday’s opening of parliament comes amid a leadership crisis at the top of government with scores of Starmer’s own MPs demanding he either stand aside or set a timetable for his departure after the party suffered heavy losses in local elections on Thursday.

“There’s deep uncertainty as to whether Starmer will be leading the government over the next 12 months or so. So it’s a bit of a paradox,” Craig Prescott, an expert in the constitutional and political role of the monarchy at Royal Holloway, University of London, told NBC News.

Starmer has insisted he is staying put and will lead his party into the next election, not a big stretch given his 165-seat parliamentary majority and that no MP or cabinet member has mounted a formal challenge to his leadership.

Nevertheless, Prescott described the parliament into which the king ventured on Wednesday as “febrile.”

“The politics of all this is a bit too close for comfort,” he said.

The BBC said allies of Health Secretary Wes Streeting had told it that he would formally challenge Starmer as early as Thursday. The pair held talks in Downing Street early Wednesday but there was no word on the outcome of their meeting.