Category Archives: Judiciary and human rights

An inquiry into inquiries: why the House of Lords has established a Statutory Inquiries Committee

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As the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry and the Covid-19 inquiry continue their work, Philip Norton explains how public inquiries can operate very differently, depending on how they are established. He discusses the numerous ways inquiries can operate, analyses post-legislative scrutiny of the relevant legislation, and outlines the aims of a new parliamentary inquiry on the subject, which he chairs.

Recent years have seen some notable disasters and scandals, including the Manchester Arena bombings, the Grenfell Tower fire, the miscarriage of justice in the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, the use of infected blood, and child sexual abuse. Whenever they occur, there is a natural desire to identify what went wrong and what can be done to prevent a reoccurrence. These tasks are typically vested in a public inquiry. Such inquiries have become a significant feature of public life. 

Setting up public inquiries is not a new activity. However, as a study by the Institute for Government has shown, public inquiries have become more numerous. Prior to the enactment of the Inquiries Act 2005, there were different statutory bases for inquiries. The principal one was the Tribunals and Inquiries (Evidence) Act 1921. It was regarded as cumbersome, requiring both Houses of Parliament to approve a Secretary of State establishing an inquiry with the same powers as the High Court. When inquiries were established, they tended to be lengthy and expensive.   

As the government’s figures show, not all public inquiries are established by statute. Ministers have the option of setting up an inquiry on a non-statutory basis. These tend to be favoured for reasons of time and cost. A non-statutory inquiry can be conducted relatively quickly. However, public pressure often leads to the creation of a statutory inquiry or a non-statutory inquiry being converted into a statutory one. Statutory inquiries have the advantage of being empowered to summon witnesses and take evidence under oath. Despite the Act imposing a duty on chairs to consider financial cost, they can still be expensive as well as lengthy, sometimes costing millions of pounds and sitting for years. Although ministers may be critical of this, the public tend to favour the statutory over the non-statutory. A survey carried out by Crest Advisory found that 75% of those questioned felt that an inquiry should investigate the event or events as thoroughly as possible even if this means the inquiry taking longer or costing more than was originally anticipated. 

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The UK Governance Project: proposals for reform

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A commission chaired by former Attorney General Dominic Grieve recently published a report on the current state of UK governance, which has identified substantial problems and made recommendations to improve matters. Here, Dominic outlines the report’s key conclusions and recommendations, ahead of an online Constitution Unit event at which he and fellow commissioner Helen MacNamara will discuss the report in greater detail and answer audience questions.

Introduction

The origin of this project was a shared concern amongst the Commissioners who came together to produce it, that the institutions which underpin our parliamentary democracy are losing credibility. This is certainly the view of the public. A 2023 Constitution Unit survey has shown that only 38% of respondents were ‘very satisfied’ or ‘fairly satisfied’ with the way UK democracy operates. In contrast 52% were dissatisfied. The same percentage agreed with the statement that ‘politicians tend to follow lower ethical standards than ordinary citizens’. Yet the same politicians are the lawmakers and governors who expect others to respect the rules they create. 

It should therefore come as little surprise that 78% of respondents also considered that ‘healthy democracy requires that politicians always act within the rules’. Yet in recent years there is plenty of evidence that this has not been happening. Government ministers have been found to be ignoring the ministerial code of conduct under which they are supposed to operate. When they have, nothing has been done about it. We have had a Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who was found by the Commons Privileges Committee to have deliberately misled parliament. The principle that appointees for life to the House of Lords as legislators in a revising chamber should be of conspicuous integrity, has been shown to be capable of being flouted at Prime Ministerial will. The Electoral Commission, which was created to ensure that elections should be free from improper interference by the government or other interests, has had its powers and independence reduced.  It has become more obvious than ever, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, that the powerful degree of control that a government exercises over parliament is not conducive to the enactment of properly scrutinised primary laws and secondary legislation.

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Why the UK government must take a different approach to restoring devolution in Northern Ireland

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Alan Whysall discusses the prospects for the return of the Northern Ireland political institutions this autumn. He finds limited grounds for optimism and concludes that the responsibility for salvaging the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement settlement may now fall to the next British government. This post picks up themes from the author’s two most recent papers for the Constitution Unit, called Northern Ireland’s Political Future (NIPF) and The Agreement at 25.

As the July issue of Monitor recorded, visits from US President Joe Biden and other notables to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement had little apparent effect on Northern Ireland politics; nor did local government elections, at which Sinn Féin emerged triumphant. The principal Agreement institutions remained in abeyance, vetoed by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which remains concerned about the Northern Ireland Protocol and Windsor Framework. At the time of writing, tensions are growing over policing, potentially deepening the political standoff. Northern Ireland meanwhile is being governed without government by civil servants who have very limited authority, together with occasional interventions from London.

Will devolution come back?

Before the summer, many commentators believed that the DUP would reach a deal in the autumn, claiming credit for aspects of the Windsor Framework, to bring back the institutions. This remains possible – many DUP careers depend on their existence. There have been suggestions of progress behind the scenes in the last few days. But it is now harder to be confident. Stasis until the UK general election seems possible, while the political, social and economic fabric of Northern Ireland deteriorates. Why?

First, the DUP may find compromise over the Protocol difficult. Negotiations are apparently going on between the party and the government, informed by a private 18-page DUP wish list. Its public demands for action on the Protocol, and on the threats it sees in it to Northern Ireland’s constitutional position, have been vaguely expressed, but the implication is that they are substantial. It seems unlikely that London can do very much to satisfy them without reopening the Protocol or the Agreement itself: and it has warned that it cannot do significantly more. So DUP supporters may be disappointed in any feasible compromise, and according to polling, they largely endorse the hard line taken so far. Senior party figures may be obdurate too, whatever the leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, wants: the former deputy leader, Lord (Nigel) Dodds of Duncairn, spoke vehemently of the ‘many unresolved and outstanding problems’ created by the Framework, suggesting London was merely peddling spin.

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