Beating the boundaries? The stalled debate on how to draw up the UK’s parliamentary constituencies

Posted on July 31, 2018 by Constitution Unit

A major 2011 shake-up of the rules governing how the UK’s parliamentary constituencies are drawn has proved controversial. While the new rules deal with the long-standing issue of substantial inequalities in constituency electorates, they also threaten frequent major disruption of the country’s constituency map. But attempts to square the circle by revising the 2011 legislation seem stalled, and the new rules themselves have yet to result in new constituencies. Charles Pattie, Ron Johnston and David Rossiter offer their view of where we are, and where we should go from here.

Largely unnoticed outside Westminster, an important debate has been going on over how to redraw the UK’s constituency map. The current rules for doing so are enshrined in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 (the Constituencies Act). But since the start of this year, two major proposals have been made to revise aspects of the Act. In February, the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) published a report setting out its proposals (and in late May, the government responded). And a private member’s bill sponsored by Labour MP Afzal Khan, containing a different set of recommended changes is still making its way through parliament. Continue reading →

The stormy Dutch referendum experience: Social media, populists and post-materialists

Posted on July 24, 2018 by The Constitution Unit

Since 1 July 2015, the Netherlands has been one of the few Western democracies that has allowed its citizens to call a referendum. However, the legislation allowing referendums is now repealed, as the new government says the law has not delivered what was expected. Four serious referendum attempts have been made during the life of the provision, of which two resulted in actual referendums. Based on these four experiences, Kristof Jacobs highlights what other countries can learn from the Dutch referendum experience.

The Dutch referendum law

The Consultative Referendum Law allows citizens to trigger a non-binding referendum about a law or treaty within a strict timeframe. In a first phase citizens have four weeks after the law or treaty is approved to collect 10,000 signatures. When this threshold is met, citizens then have six weeks to collect 300,000 new signatures. Certain topics, such as the constitution, the budget, and the monarchy are exempt.

Once enough signatures have been collected, a referendum is held, and 30% of the electorate must take part in order for the vote to be valid. If the majority of voters support ‘No’ and the turnout threshold is met, a bill withdrawing the law or treaty has to be introduced. The Parliament can decide not to approve this bill, but a debate has to be held. In other words: the result is advisory, even though there are formal consequences. In practice, both successful referendums led to changes to the existing legislation/treaty.

The referendum law does not allow government-initiated referendums, for two reasons. First, if the referendum is supposed to be a method of highlighting gaps between the government and public opinion, it is widely accepted among politicians that they are not in a good position to be the ones calling the referendum. After all, if they already knew there was a gap, they would surely already have acted to close it. Moreover, such referendums are seen as easy to manipulate by government parties. Continue reading →

No end to hereditary peer by-elections in the House of Lords?

Posted on July 24, 2018 by The Constitution Unit

The House of Lords is not entirely unelected; July saw two new peers appointed following elections involving a very small, select group of electors. In this post, former Clerk of the Parliaments David Beamish discusses the process by which hereditary peers can be elected to the Lords, how the system came to exist, and the continuing efforts to remove the remaining hereditaries altogether.

It was announced on 18 July that Lord Bethell had been elected to fill a vacancy among the 90 elected hereditary peers in the House of Lords – the 34th such vacancy to be filled by means of a by-election. The vacancy arose from the retirement of the Conservative peer Lord Glentoran (the House’s only Winter Olympic gold medallist) on 1 June. These by-elections are conducted using the alternative vote system and, despite there being 11 candidates, Lord Bethell did not need any transfers of votes, receiving 26 of the 43 first-preference votes cast by Conservative hereditary peers.

This was the second by-election this month: on 4 July the Earl of Devon was elected to fill a Crossbench place vacated by the retirement of Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, grandson of Stanley Baldwin and a tireless campaigner against water fluoridation. The Earl of Devon received 7 of the 26 first-preference votes of Crossbench hereditary peers and it took five transfers of votes for him to be elected.

Viscount Mountgarret was a candidate in both by-elections, receiving no votes in either. His optimism when deciding to stand the second time might have been fuelled by the success of the Earl of Oxford and Asquith, who was elected by the whole House in 2014 and sits as a Liberal Democrat, having previously been an unsuccessful candidate in a Crossbench by-election in 2011 and in Conservative by-elections in 2011 and 2013.

At least one more by-election is in prospect: Lord Northbourne, a Crossbench hereditary peer, has given notice that he will retire on 4 September.

Where do by-elections come from? The House of Lords Act 1999

The present arrangements whereby 92 hereditary peers sit in the House of Lords derive from the House of Lords Act 1999, which removed most of the 750 hereditary peers but provided, under the so-called ‘Weatherill amendment’, for two office-holders (the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain) and 90 elected hereditary peers to continue as members. The 90 comprised 15 peers willing to serve as deputy speakers or committee chairs, elected by the whole House, and 75 peers representing 10 per cent of the hereditary peers in each party or group: 42 Conservatives, 28 Crossbenchers, 3 Liberal Democrats and 2 Labour peers; they were elected by the hereditary peers in their respective groups. Continue reading →

The failed Senate reform in Italy: international lessons on why bicameral reforms so often (but not quite always) fail

Posted on July 20, 2018 by The Constitution Unit

meg-russell

On 11 and 12 June 2018 the Constitution Unit co-hosted two workshops with Rome LUISS university, the first being on ‘The challenges of reforming upper houses in the UK and Italy’. This post is the first in a series summarising the speakers’ contributions. Here the Unit’s Meg Russell reflects broadly on the international challenges of bicameral reform, drawing on experiences in the UK, Italy, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and Spain.

In reflecting on comparisons between the UK and Italy, in many ways our two parliaments are very different. The UK parliament is traditionally seen as weak (though I have disputed this), while the Italian parliament is seen as strong. Connectedly, the UK House of Lords is a wholly unelected institution, while the Italian Senate is largely made up of directly elected members. Nonetheless, one thing that unites the two systems is long-running pressure for bicameral reform. In both countries there have been numerous proposals made for second chamber reform over decades, most of which have failed. The most recent and fairly spectacular examples were the failure of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s proposals for Lords reform in 2012, and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s proposals for Senate reform in 2016, which led to his resignation after voters rejected them at a referendum.

My own interest in bicameral reform dates back to 20 years ago when I began research for my first book, Reforming the House of Lords: Lessons from Overseas. In seeking to learn lessons for Lords reform from other countries, it soon became clear that reform pressures in the UK were far from isolated – if anything, they were the norm. So much so that I dedicated a chapter in that book to comparative pressures for reform.

So why are second chambers worldwide so controversial? And why, given these pressures, do they prove in practice so difficult to reform? The answers to these questions are closely related. Continue reading →

Monitor 69: Rethinking referendums

Posted on July 16, 2018 by The Constitution Unit

The latest issue of Monitor, the Constitution Unit’s regular newsletter, was published today. The issue covers all of the major UK constitutional developments over the past four months, a period that has seen the EU (Withdrawal) Bill pass into law, a government White Paper on Brexit provoke numerous ministerial resignations, continuing investigations into the conduct of the EU referendum campaigns, and a failure to restore devolved government in Northern Ireland. Abroad, Ireland’s referendum on repeal of restrictions on abortion passed by an overwhelming majority, and Italy has a new government, the formation of which raised questions about the position and role of the country’s president. This post is the opening article from Monitor 69, and you can download the full issue on our website.

Political debate in the UK continues to be dominated by the fallout of the 2016 Brexit referendum. Both government and parliament are grappling with the detail of how Brexit can, and should, be realised.

Last year the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) characterised the vote of June 2016 disapprovingly as a ‘bluff-call’ referendum, where the government puts something to the vote in the hope it would be defeated, without setting out clearly the consequences of change. As committee chair Bernard Jenkin said on our blog at the time, ‘there should be more clarity and planning by the government holding the referendum, so there is less of a crisis of uncertainty if they don’t get the answer they want, as in the EU referendum’. That crisis of uncertainty continues. One consequence is that both MPs and peers face claims of ‘betrayal’ for asking awkward questions, which cannot be good for democracy.

It is in this context that the Independent Commission on Referendums, established by the Constitution Unit last year, has recently issued its report. The Commission was set up following concerns about various recent referendums, in order to examine the role that such polls should play in the UK’s system of representative democracy, and how they can best be conducted and regulated. It comprised 12 senior politicians, journalists, public servants, and researchers, who spanned the major dividing lines in contemporary UK politics. The Commission’s report represents the most comprehensive review of referendums in the UK for 20 years. It follows a previous Commission established by the Unit, whose 1996 report helped lead to the first statutory regulation of referendums in 2000. Continue reading →

The Constitution Unit Blog

Monthly Archives: July 2018

Beating the boundaries? The stalled debate on how to draw up the UK’s parliamentary constituencies

No end to hereditary peer by-elections in the House of Lords?

The failed Senate reform in Italy: international lessons on why bicameral reforms so often (but not quite always) fail

The Constitution Unit Blog

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