Charles III gives the first King’s Speech in more than 70 years Tuesday, formally opening the UK parliament with a run-down of his government’s legislative plans as an election looms. The 74-year-old head of state will outline Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s wish list of new laws that are expected to underline differences with the main opposition Labour Party. The address from a golden throne in the House of Lords comes as the Tories, in power since 2010, trail Labour by double-digits in most opinion polls before an election widely expected next year. “The King’s Speech represents one of the last chances for Rishi Sunak to set out his stall,” said Richard Carr, an associate professor in public policy and strategy at Anglia Ruskin University. “Being a low-polling prime minister, one of the few virtues he currently has is he can set the national agenda, control what his supportive newspapers print, and thereby try and set a series of hurdles for the opposition to jump through,” he told AFP. The ceremonial address, and the traditions that accompany it, is Charles’s first as monarch, although he had a dry run deputising for his mother Queen Elizabeth II in May last year. It is also Sunak’s first since succeeding Liz Truss, who took over from Boris Johnson as prime minister just two days before the queen’s death and lasted only 49 days in office. In the speech, Sunak will reinforce clear dividing lines that he is drawing with Keir Starmer’s centre-left Labour party over the environment and energy. It will propose a law granting new licences for oil and gas projects in the North Sea annually that Sunak says will reduce Britain’s reliance on foreign energy and create jobs.