With a general election expected sometime in 2024, political parties are increasingly planning their manifestos. A report published jointly today by the Constitution Unit and Institute for Government offers a menu of options for constitutional reform, from ‘quick wins’ to much larger-scale changes. Authors Meg Russell, Hannah White and Lisa James explain its importance.
A general election is legally required by January 2025, and is likely next year. This means political parties are increasingly focused on planning their manifestos. Among the many policy areas they must address is the future of the UK constitution.
Recent years have demonstrated numerous constitutional tensions. The Brexit period saw conflicts over the appropriate roles of parliament and executive, and the Covid-19 pandemic intensified long-running debates about how government freedom to act should be balanced with adequate parliamentary scrutiny. A series of standards scandals have highlighted weaknesses in the current systems for ensuring politicians’ integrity. There have been substantial pressures on the devolution settlement, while devolution within England remains a complex patchwork. Tensions between government and the legal profession, also a feature of the Brexit years, have continued, most recently over migration policy – and expert groups have expressed concern over government willingness to breach international law. Controversial changes to election law have also raised questions about electoral integrity.
Research by the Constitution Unit demonstrates that the public care about these topics, ranking the health of UK democracy alongside crime and immigration. Survey responses show very strong public support for high constitutional standards, and checks and balances.
Our new report – Rebuilding and Renewing the Constitution: Options for Reform – published today jointly by the Constitution Unit and Institute for Government, offers a menu of options for constitutional reform. It draws together recommendations from numerous expert bodies and parliamentary committees to lay out the options for reform across five key areas: the executive; parliament; the territorial constitution; courts and the rule of law; and elections and public participation. These include numerous modest changes that could be quickly and easily implemented – either by the current government, or a new government after the election – to improve the functioning of the constitution and make our democratic institutions more robust, but also some larger possible changes.
‘Quick wins’, moderate changes and larger more controversial reforms
Each chapter presents three categories of reform proposals:
- Quick wins: these are changes that could be implemented quickly and easily, using powers that the government already has at its disposal. In the case of a new government, such changes could be implemented in the first 100 days, without legislation or the need for significant consultation. Such options exist across all five policy areas. They include, for example, giving the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests the power to open their own investigations into alleged breaches of the Ministerial Code – a reform which commands wide support, and could be enacted by a simple letter from the Prime Minister. Likewise, the powers of the House of Lords Appointments Commission could be increased, and the Prime Minister promise to be bound by its recommendations. Even simple statements of government support for the civil service, constitutional regulators, proper parliamentary scrutiny and the role of the courts could make an important difference.
- Moderate changes: there are then numerous reforms which would need legislation or require greater consultation than the ‘quick wins’, but which are nonetheless achievable and relatively uncontroversial. These proposals make up the majority of the report, and taken together would represent a significant constitutional reform programme, but one which could readily be implemented within a single parliament. Examples include putting key constitutional regulators onto a statutory basis, strengthening devolution arrangements, improving the legislative process to deliver more effective parliamentary scrutiny, modernising election law, and reviewing and extending the use of deliberative processes such as citizens’ assemblies.
- Larger more controversial reforms: public debates on the constitution often focus on some of the largest and most complex questions, which would be harder to achieve due to their scale, reach or level of controversy. Expert opinion is often divided on these questions, and they may have been advocated only within one political party (or perhaps even a section of that party). Such changes should be approached carefully, and would require significant thought and wide consultation. Examples include electoral reform for the House of Commons, introducing elections to the House of Lords, fundamentally changing the UK’s territorial arrangements, or radically shaking up the civil service. These larger and more controversial changes would take up more time and could almost certainly not all be delivered in the lifetime of a single government. Indeed, some of them are in conflict, and push in opposing directions.
Taken together, the proposals in the report are provided as a menu of reform options for parties seeking constitutional renewal. Many of them have already been carefully worked through by expert bodies, and the report provides references and further reading for readers wishing to pursue them further.
Developing a reform agenda
Developing a successful programme of reform is, of course, not as simple as choosing from a menu. Any government will have to balance action on the constitution with numerous other pressing policy areas such as the cost of living crisis, the NHS, education, the environment and foreign affairs. The proposals in the ‘quick wins’ category of this report are deliberately intended to be quickly and easily implemented. Beyond this, careful planning will be essential when pursuing a wider-reaching reform agenda.
One key question is that of timing. Ministerial, civil service and legislative time are all finite, and prioritisation is key. A constitutional reform programme will need to be planned across the government’s term, with careful consideration given to which reforms are most important to enact in the first year, and which require consultations or reviews to run before their conclusions can be assessed and acted upon. This is particularly important for the most ambitious potential reforms, where consultation will first be required, followed by legislation – which may itself be contentious and need substantial parliamentary time.
Coordination of content is an even more important consideration. Individual changes may interrelate in obvious ways – for example, questions of devolution, and of possible territorial representation in the second chamber, are closely related. Hence consultation and deliberation on these matters would need to proceed together. But more generally, thought needs to be given to how changes will interconnect, including how changes within individual democratic institutions may affect the interactions between them.
One way to manage both of these crucial forms of coordination would be to plan ahead to where responsibility for driving constitutional policy should lie. In particular, a Cabinet committee might be established to bring together key ministers, chaired by a senior figure with overall responsibility for the constitution. This person might or might not be designated as Minister for the Constitution. Such an idea was recently endorsed by senior Conservative and Labour figures at the closing session on implementing constitutional change at the Constitution Unit’s summer conference (available to watch or listen back).
The government will also need to work closely with other actors in securing various reforms, including the devolved governments and bodies inside parliament. As a matter of principle, it is desirable for constitutional reform to have broad political support, in order to secure institutions that are stable, long-lasting and seen as fair. Equally, it is important to involve the public as fully as possible in decisions about large-scale reform, and there are various mechanisms through which to do this, some of which have recently been employed by the Constitution Unit.
There is great potential, and significant public demand, for constitutional renewal. But developing and enacting such a programme is far from easy. We hope that this report offers a useful starting point for political parties in thinking through their proposals for the future, and that it encourages thinking about the key requirements for successful implementation.
The report is available to download on the Unit’s website. If the themes of the report interest you, we recommend that you watch the output from our summer conference, which is free to access. Meg and Hannah, co-authors of this report, spoke as part the Constitutional Standards panel, and Meg chaired a keynote session on implementing constitutional change.
About the authors
Meg Russell FBA is Professor of British and Comparative Politics at UCL and Director of the Constitution Unit.
Hannah White is Director of the Institute for Government.
Lisa James is a Research Fellow at the Constitution Unit.
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