Monitor 76: Democratic lockdown?

Posted on November 12, 2020 by The Constitution Unit

The latest edition of Monitor, the Unit’s regular news update on constitutional issues, was published today. In this lead article from Monitor 76, Meg Russell and Alan Renwick discuss the key events and themes of the past four months. They include tensions between devolved and central govermnent related to Brexit and COVID-19; concern about parliamentary scrutiny of the pandemic; criticism of the government’s commitment to the rule of law (called into question by the UK Internal Market Bill, the Faulks review and criticism of the legal profession); the Russia report and other concerns about the country’s electoral framework; and the reshaping of government and civil service operations by Number 10.

England entered a new COVID-19 ‘lockdown’ just before Monitor went to press. The pandemic continues to dominate politics in the UK and globally, with a return to politics-as-usual appearing distant. Both the handling of the crisis and the government’s latest actions on Brexit have been key factors driving serious concerns about the maintenance of constitutional norms in the UK. But as this latest Monitor catalogues, the roots of those concerns – about declining respect for conventions and deliberate or accidental erosion of ‘checks and balances’ – are now spread across many fields.

There was tolerance in the early stages of the pandemic for quick decision-making, and partial bypassing of parliament. But that has increasingly grown thin. The UK is one of many countries where concerns have been expressed about COVID facilitating an executive ‘power grab’. Worldwide, experts have warned that ‘democracy, human rights and the rule of law cannot be allowed to become the collateral damage of the pandemic’. Most key decisions at UK level have come via secondary legislation, often published at short notice with little or no opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny. Increasing protests from MPs, parliamentary committees and the Commons Speaker (see page 5) extracted concessions from ministers that parliamentary oversight would increase – hence the difficult vote on the new lockdown arrangements on 4 November. A total of 34 Conservative MPs voted against the new regulations – which represents almost half of the government’s working majority – and others abstained; though the measure passed comfortably with Labour support. A concerted cross-party approach from the start might have been sensible, but can be uncomfortable for ministers, particularly when accompanied by internal party dissent.

Continue reading →

The Innovation in Democracy Programme and its lessons for deliberative democracy

Posted on August 26, 2020 by The Constitution Unit

The Innovation in Democracy Programme (IiDP) was created in 2019 to support local authorities in using deliberative democracy – through citizens’ assemblies and associated methods – to shape decision-making and policy creation. Here, five of the key figures involved in creating and operating the IiDP outline the methods, challenges and outcomes of a programme that had to adapt and adjust to both an early general election and the COVID-19 crisis.

What is the Innovation in Democracy Programme?

The Innovation in Democracy Programme (IiDP) – established by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) – was an innovative experiment which challenged us to support local authorities to tackle a complex, local issue in a different way; we tested using a deliberative democracy process within a local government environment to change the way communities are involved in sharing and shaping decision-making. We think it’s fair to say it worked, but with lots of learning for all involved.

The programme’s aims were to:

increase the opportunities for local people to have a greater say over decisions that affect their communities and their everyday lives;
encourage new relationships and build trust between citizens and local authorities;
strengthen local civil society by encouraging participation in local institutions.

Involve, Democratic Society, mySociety and the RSA worked from March 2019 to March 2020 with three local authorities – Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council; Greater Cambridge Partnership; and Test Valley Borough Council – to involve residents in decision-making. We did this through piloting citizens’ assemblies. We were asked to support the local authorities in the following ways:

design, facilitate and report on their citizens’ assembly;
develop a digital strategy to extend the reach, transparency, and accountability of the process; and,
collect and share the local authority’s learning within and beyond their authority.

This video gives a unique insight into the citizens’ assembly process from the perspective of three participants from each of the areas. Continue reading →

Digital technology and the resurrection of trust: the report of the House of Lords Democracy and Digital Technologies Committee

Posted on July 10, 2020 by The Constitution Unit

The House of Lords Democracy and Digital Technologies Committee has published a report about how democracy can be done better as technology evolves, which endorsed Unit Deputy Director Alan Renwick’s key recommendation of a democratic information hub. Alex Walker offers an analysis of the report.

On 29 June, the House of Lords Select Committee on Democracy and Digital Technology published a major report, following its inquiry into the effects of digital technology on democracy. The report focuses on how the practices of many large digital technology platforms risks feeding an erosion of trust in democracy and sets out a regulatory framework designed to restore faith in the system. Importantly, it goes beyond this to look at improving digital skills and using technology to aid democratic engagement.

The committee’s recommendations on fact-checking, digital imprints, libraries of online political advertising, and promotion of digital literacy echo those of many earlier analyses, including those of the Electoral Commission and the Independent Commission on Referendums, as well as the Unit’s Doing Democracy Better report, published last year. Drawing on one of the core proposals of Doing Democracy Better, the Unit’s Deputy Director and author of the report Alan Renwick, along with co-author Michela Palese and Joe Mitchell (then of Democracy Club), gave written evidence to the committee setting out the case for an independent democratic information hub. The committee fully endorsed the proposal. Continue reading →

Monitor 75: The constitution under COVID-19

Posted on July 7, 2020 by The Constitution Unit

alan.jfif (1) Monitor 75, the latest edition of the Unit’s regular news update on constitutional issues, was published this morning. Since the last edition in March, what had once been the defining issue of this political generation — Brexit — has been almost entirely subsumed by an even larger crisis: COVID-19. A new and inexperienced government has found itself temporarily without its Prime Minister, announced the departure of the Cabinet Secretary, and encountered significant dissension from the backbenches on more than one occasion. Tensions within the Union have been thrown into stark relief by the increasingly different courses pursued by its constituent nations. As for the state of democracy, parliament has trialled numerous methods of operation, passing laws and changing how it regulates itself in multiple ways, whilst elections have been put on hold and organisations involved in deliberative democracy have struggled to continue their work. Meg Russell and Alan Renwick discuss the key events and themes of the past four months, and also reflect briefly on the Unit’s history as it celebrates its 25th anniversary.

As the last issue of Monitor went to press in early March the idea that COVID-19 might change everything was only just dawning. In the subsequent four months, its impact on politics as well as daily life has been transformational. Just as the UK hoped to exit one torrid period of politics dominated by a single issue, a new, still bigger challenge eclipsed it. Brexit has barely featured in the past few months’ political news. Instead, Boris Johnson rapidly shifted from the Prime Minister who would ‘get Brexit done’ to the one who needed to steer the nation through a health crisis, and perhaps in due course through an economic crisis as well.

COVID-19 has touched almost every aspect of how politics is done, and raised new questions about the functioning of some aspects of the UK constitution, as this issue of Monitor sets out. The Coronavirus Bill was rushed through both chambers of parliament – with consent from the devolved legislatures – in just six days in March, as the official ‘lockdown’ was just beginning. At the outset this barred most workplaces from opening and confined most people – except when undertaking limited activities – to their homes. The Prime Minister spoke to the nation in a televised address, and daily Downing Street press conferences involving ministers and (usually) government scientists became the norm, seven days per week. On 6 April Boris Johnson himself was hospitalised with the virus, leaving Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to deputise (see page 12). Other key ministers and officials – notably including Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings – also fell ill.

At the start of the crisis there was widespread support for the government’s position, within the governing party, across the parties and among the devolved administrations. Public approval for the government’s handling was high, in what political scientists would see was typical of the ‘rally round the flag’ effect often found in national crises. But since that time, tensions have gradually grown. Continue reading →

The Constitution Unit turns 25!

Posted on June 15, 2020 by The Constitution Unit

This year, 2020, marks a full 25 years since the foundation of the Constitution Unit. It has been a hugely eventful period, both in terms of real-world constitutional change and controversies, and in terms of the Unit’s own work. To mark our silver anniversary, we are celebrating some of the key ways in which the Unit has contributed to public debates, and helped to inform policy change, over this period. What better way to celebrate 25 years than with 25 of our most notable achievements?

Note that this post reproduces the text from a new page on our website celebrating our 25 years. That contains a full set of 25 images, so some readers may prefer to access the website version.

1. Hitting the ground running

Robert Hazell founded the Constitution Unit in 1995, with funding from six charitable trusts, to help with detailed planning for big constitutional reforms following a possible change of government. The initial research team included Graham Leicester (from the Foreign Office), Nicole Smith (Home Office) and Katy Donnelly. The Unit published seven book-length reports the following year: the first on how to prepare and deliver a big constitutional reform programme, and others on devolution to Scotland, Wales and the English regions, reform of the House of Lords, human rights legislation, and the conduct of referendums (the latter recommending the establishment of an Electoral Commission). From 1997, the new Labour government began to implement its constitutional reform programme, which often reflected Unit recommendations. Responding to the intense reform activity in government, the Unit published 17 further reports in 1998 and 20 more in 1999.

2. Monitor goes to print

In September 1997 the Unit published the first issue of Monitor, its regular bulletin of constitutional news. Monitor continues today to provide an essential digest of political and constitutional changes three times a year, valued by over 4800 subscribers – if you are not among them, you can sign up here.

3. Reform of the House of Lords

From its earliest years, the Unit has fed in regularly to debates about reform of the House of Lords. It published ten briefings for the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords in 1999, several of them authored by the Unit’s future Director Meg Russell and drawing on analysis of overseas experience. In 2000, she published the book Reforming the House of Lords: Lessons from Overseas. This body of comparative research has influenced debates on second chamber reform in various other countries as well as the UK – including Canada, Italy and Japan. Meanwhile Meg’s 2013 book The Contemporary House of Lords is today’s definitive work on the chamber, underpinned by research funded by the ESRC.

Continue reading →

Permanent joint committees in Belgium: involving citizens in parliamentary debate

Posted on May 28, 2020 by The Constitution Unit

Citizens’ assemblies are increasingly used in the UK and around the world to examine difficult policy questions. But they are typically ad hoc and therefore heavily reliant on political good will – prompting the question of whether they can be built into policymaking processes more systematically. The parliament of Belgium’s Brussels region has just launched an experiment in doing exactly that. Elisa Minsart and Vincent Jacquet describe the changes that have been introduced and consider their chances of success.

Amidst wide public disillusionment with the institutions of representative democracy, political scientists, campaigners and politicians have intensified efforts to find an effective mechanism to narrow the gap between citizens and those who govern them. One of the most popular remedies in recent years – and one frequently touted as a way to break the Brexit impasse encountered by the UK political class in 2016-19 – is that of citizens’ assemblies. These deliberative forums gather diversified samples of the population, recruited through a process of random selection. Citizens who participate meet experts, deliberate on a specific public issue and make a range of recommendations for policy-making. Citizens’ assemblies are flourishing in many representative democracies – not least in the UK, with the current Climate Assembly UK and Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland. They show that citizens are able to deliberate on complex political issues and to deliver original proposals.

For several years now, some public leaders, scholars and politicians have sought to integrate these democratic innovations into more traditional political structures. Belgium recently made a step in this direction. Each of Belgium’s three regions has its own parliament, with full legislative powers: on 13 November 2019, a proposition was approved to modify how the Parliament of the Brussels Region operates. The reform mandates the establishment of joint deliberative committees, on which members of the public will serve alongside elected representatives. This will enable ordinary people to deliberate with MPs on preselected themes and to formulate recommendations. The details of the process are currently still being drafted and the first commission is expected to launch at the end of 2020. Despite the COVID-19 crisis, drafting and negotiations with other parties have not been interrupted thanks to an online platform and a videoconference facility.

This experience has been inspired by other initiatives organised in Belgium. In 2011, the G1000 initiative brought together more than 700 randomly selected citizens to debate on different topics. This grassroots experiment attracted lots of public attention. In its aftermath, the different parliaments of the country launched their own citizens’ assemblies, designed to tackle specific local issues. Some international experiences also inspired the Brussels Region, in particular the first Irish Constitutional Convention (2012–2014). This assembly was composed of both elected representatives and randomly selected citizens, and led directly to a referendum that approved the legalisation of same-sex marriage. However, the present joint committees go well beyond these initiatives. Whereas both of these predecessors were ad hoc initiatives designed to resolve particular problems, the Brussels committees will be permanent and hosted at the heart of the parliament. Both of these aspects make the new committees a major innovation and entirely different from the predecessors that helped inspire them. Continue reading →

How we moved Climate Assembly UK online

Posted on May 8, 2020 by The Constitution Unit

The restrictions on public gatherings brought in as a response to the coronavirus pandemic pose challenges to those seeking to set up and run effective citizens’ assemblies. For those involved in the already-running Climate Assembly UK, those challenges had to be understood and met without the benefit of the preparation time future remote assemblies might have. Sarah Allan explains how she moved that assembly online.

Climate Assembly UK moved online at the end of March 2020. Since then, we’ve held two assembly weekends online, with all assembly members still involved.

A fair few people from around the world have been in touch to ask how this worked. The answers to their questions and my wider reflections on online assemblies are too much for one blog post, but this is a start.

For those less familiar with it, Climate Assembly UK is the first UK-wide citizens’ assembly on climate change. It was commissioned by six cross-party committees of the House of Commons to look at how the UK should meet its target of net-zero emissions. You can read more about that and the assembly here.

The assembly was meant to meet over four weekends in Birmingham between late January and late March 2020. The first three of these weekends took place as planned. However, the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic led to the fourth weekend being postponed, and then to the decision to move the assembly online.

This was a first. No citizens’ assembly in the UK – or in the world, as far as we’re aware – has ever taken place online, with the exception of one meeting of la Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat.

There were lots of considerations about whether, and how, to make this shift. Here I focus on four themes. The description of each is not exhaustive, but I’ve highlighted some of the points that feel most important. Continue reading →

Monitor 74: Normality, or revolution?

Posted on March 9, 2020 by The Constitution Unit

alan.jfif (1) Monitor 74, the latest edition of the Unit’s regular news update on constitutional issues, was published this morning. Since the last edition in November, we have had a general election, a government reshuffle, a new parliament with new committee chairs, and the UK has left the European Union. The future does not look dull, either. The negotiations about the future relationship with the EU have only just begun, a Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission has been promised, and both Labour and the Lib Dems face leadership elections that could alter the future course of both parties. Here, Meg Russell and Alan Renwick, the Unit’s Director and Deputy Director respectively, offer their take on the past four months – and what the future might hold for a majority government in uncertain times with as yet undefined opponents.

The result of December’s election was decisive – Boris Johnson’s Conservative government returned to power with a House of Commons working majority of 87. His election slogan of ‘get Brexit done’ helped cut through, including in many former Labour heartlands (although at the aggregate level more votes were cast for parties supporting a referendum than for those pledged to immediately deliver Brexit). The party’s renewed parliamentary strength has now allowed Johnson to deliver on that promise. His post-election European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill passed unamended, and the UK formally left the EU on 31 January.

In some respects the election result seemed to indicate a return to normality – the classic UK expectation of stable single-party majority government was fulfilled. After periods of coalition government between 2010 and 2015, a narrow and brittle Conservative majority between 2015 and 2017, and minority government from 2017 to 2019, ‘normal service’ could resume. There are 365 Conservative MPs to Labour’s 202, with the smaller parties that take their seats collectively on 75 (see page 5). Not only is Johnson’s parliamentary party larger than that in the previous parliament, it also seems likely to be more united – at least on the key issue of Brexit. The Conservative MPs that he stripped of the whip in September almost all either retired or were defeated. Former Conservatives running as independents or for other parties, including Dominic Grieve, David Gauke, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston were all swept away.

There is hence some scope for politics to settle down, and the high-profile clashes of the last three years have probably been left behind. The government will be keen to shift the focus from Brexit to its domestic agenda. Indeed, guidance has apparently been issued in Whitehall to discourage use of the term ‘Brexit’ at all. Furthermore, changes to the final implementing legislation (see page 4) mean that the new parliament will have little formal control over the shape of the UK’s future relationship with the EU. The transition period seems unlikely to be extended beyond the end of the year.

Yet it would be an overstatement to suggest that parliament will now become boring. The UK–EU negotiations (see page 3) will certainly raise controversies. And discontent on the Conservative benches is already showing on matters such as the HS2 railway line, the role of Chinese tech giant Huawei in the UK’s 5G network, and levels of taxation and spending. A desire to retain the party’s expanded working class electorate may raise multiple tensions with its more traditional supporters.

At the same time, there are many big questions about the future of British politics and the constitution. The government was elected on a manifesto hinting at wide-ranging constitutional reforms. The now famous page 48 suggested a need to review ‘the relationship between the Government, Parliament and the courts; the functioning of the Royal Prerogative; the role of the House of Lords; and access to justice for ordinary people’, and promised a Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission to do so. It also made various more specific commitments, including scrapping the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (the topic of the Unit’s next public seminar), and changes to electoral rules (see page 9).

Whether and how fundamental questions of balance in the constitution will be addressed remains unknown. Continue reading →

The Constitution Unit blog in 2019: a year in review

Posted on December 23, 2019 by The Constitution Unit

As was the case last year, 2019 has been a fascinating time to be writing about the UK constitution, its institutions and those involved in working within them. As the year draws to a close, blog editor Dave Busfield-Birch offers a roundup of the blog year just gone, as well as a look at the reach of the blog through the lens of its readership statistics.

2019 has been a year of constitutional flux and tension, with a new Prime Minister, a new Brexit deal and a new parliament, with a significant number of new MPs. The blog has benefited both in terms of increased general interest as a result, but also because there are niche topics being discussed in public now that would have generated little interest in other years. Few, for example, would have predicted in June 2016 that prorogation of parliament would be a hot topic and pose a constitutional dilemma that only the Supreme Court could solve.

Below are our most popular blogs from the past year, which follow a personal selection from me, at the end of my second year as blog editor.

Editor’s picks by category

Brexit

Brexit and the constitution: seven lessons, by Jack Simson Caird.

Written back in June, but still relevant today, the Bingham Centre’s Jack Simson Caird discussed how the process of exiting the European Union has revealed that the relationship between law and politics was perhaps not as sound as it might once have appeared, and what lessons that had to teach us.

Parliament

Leaving the European Union, leaving the Palace of Westminster: Brexit and the Restoration and Renewal Programme, by Alexandra Meakin.

This may well have been the post that I found most fascinating this year (in a very tight contest). Alexandra Meakin (now Dr Meakin — many congratulations) discusses the relationship between the UK’s upcoming departure from the EU and the plans for MPs and peers to temporarily move out of the Palace of Westminster. Her analysis shows that there is a correlation between an MP’s stance on Brexit and their position on how best to handle the restoration and renewal programme.

I also want to offer a special mention to the trilogy of articles on the role of parliamentary legal advisers and the desirability of publishing their advice, which you can read here, here and here. They make fascinating reading, despite (in the case of the first two) coming to oppposite final conclusions.

Elections, referendums and democratic engagement

Is there an app for that? Voter information in the event of a snap election, by Joe Mitchell.

Digital technology has transformed the way we access information and interact with services. Democratic services have not kept up, risking a situation where democracy is seen as out of date. Joe Mitchell argues that it’s time to dream big: the UK has an opportunity to create a new digital-first office of civic education and democratic information, to restore trust and grow public understanding of our democracy. Continue reading →

Constitutional plans and pledges in the 2019 election manifestos

Posted on December 5, 2019 by The Constitution Unit

With just two weeks until polling day, the major parties have all published their manifestos: we now know their stated plans for the constitution. Stephen Mitchell, Elspeth Nicholson, Harrison Shaylor and Alex Walker examine what each party has to say about constitutional reform of the UK’s institutions, altering the devolution settlement and developing a written constitution.

This election sees a series of radical proposals for constitutional reform from all the political parties. You would not glean this from the introduction to most of the manifestos, or the table of contents; the parties are keenly aware that most voters are not interested in constitutional reform. So we have had to dig deep to extract the key constitutional pledges from the manifestos. We start with their high level plans for a constitutional convention and a written constitution, before discussing devolution and the Union, electoral reform and parliamentary reform. We have not included their plans for Brexit, because these are well known; but Brexit will obviously be a significant – if not the biggest – constitutional change, with major knock-on effects elsewhere. Nor have we included the parties from Northern Ireland, in the interests of space: this analysis is confined to the parties standing for election in Great Britain.

Democratic innovation

A number of political parties have promised citizen-led democratic initiatives in their manifestos, particularly on constitutional questions. Several parties want to develop a written constitution via this participatory route, and some have also promised citizen involvement on other questions, such as climate change.

Labour have set out their plan for a ‘UK-wide Constitutional Convention, led by a citizens’ assembly’. The scope of the proposed convention is broad – considering the renewal of parliament, how power is distributed and the relationship between the nations and regions of the UK. The convention will also consider the Welsh Government’s 20-point devolution plan, published in October.

The Conservatives agree that ‘proposals to restore trust in our institutions and in how our democracy operates’ are needed. However, they stop short of a citizens’ convention, opting instead for a ‘Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission’ to be set up in their first year. One of the Commission’s key stated tasks will be to ‘update the Human Rights Act and administrative law to ensure there is a proper balance between the rights of individuals, our vital national security and effective government’; and ‘ensure that judicial review… is not abused to conduct politics by another means or to create needless delays’.

The Liberal Democrats and the Brexit Party both mention a written constitution and set out measures for greater citizen involvement. The Liberal Democrats promise a written federal constitution that enshrines home rule and makes permanent the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales. They also plan to introduce a range of citizens’ assemblies at both local and national level on ‘the greatest challenges we face’, including climate change and the state’s use of artificial intelligence. Continue reading →

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