The measure with the most far-reaching impact announced in the Queen's Speech is likely to be the Climate Change Bill to be tabled by Environment Secretary David Miliband.
The Bill is part of the international effort to halt global warming, which Downing Street described as "the biggest long-term threat that we now face".
The Bill will set in law the Government's goal of cutting Britain's emissions of greenhouse gas CO2 by 60% by 2050 and will establish an independent Carbon Committee to advise ministers on how to do this.
Arrangements for increased reporting to Parliament on progress will be made, but as expected there is no provision for binding annual targets on cuts in emissions, as demanded by environmentalists.
In other measures announced by ministers, heads of failing colleges will be sacked under plans for new powers to tackle poor quality further education.
Even principals at colleges that are merely "not improving" will face dismissal, the Government said.
The tougher sanctions will be part of a new Further Education and Training Bill, announced in the Queen's Speech.
A Government spokesman said the Bill would "establish an effective intervention regime" where colleges are "unsatisfactory or not improving". This would give the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) a "new duty to direct removal of principals and senior post holders".
The LSC would take on the Education Secretary's powers to intervene in failing colleges under the plan - between 2001 and 2004, inspectors judged 10%-14% of colleges as inadequate.
The Bill would also attempt to raise the quality of college principals by introducing a new power to regulate the qualifications they have.
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