The July general election was the first UK-wide vote since new voter ID rules were introduced by the Elections Act 2022. Ralph Scott and Edward Fieldhouse examine recent data to show what voter groups are without an accepted form of voter ID and how the new rules affected turnout. They argue that the list of permissible forms of ID should be expanded and that more needs to be done to educate electors about the rules.
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What did – and didn’t – the King’s speech say on the constitution?
Following the King’s speech on Wednesday, Lisa James assesses its pledges on the constitution, which included reforms to devolution, the House of Lords and government transparency. What should we expect to see in the new parliament’s first session, what might happen without legislation, and what might follow in future sessions?
At the state opening of parliament on Wednesday, the King’s speech laid out the government’s legislative programme for the current parliamentary session. Among the 40 bills announced were a number relating to the constitution – but various constitutional policies previously announced by Labour were omitted, at least for now. Some could be pursued by non-legislative means, while others may be set to follow in a later session.
What was included?
Perhaps the most substantial constitutional material in the King’s speech related to devolution. The government promises an English Devolution Bill which will, among other things, create a legislative framework for devolution, devolve further powers to local level, and reform governance arrangements. A separate bill will create new local powers relating to bus franchising. The new government’s intention to move quickly on English devolution was also demonstrated in a letter sent from Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Angela Rayner to council leaders earlier in the week. Rayner reiterated the government’s commitment to widening and deepening devolution in England, and invited new devolution deal bids by the end of September.
Continue readingThe constitution in the 2024 general election manifestos
With just over two weeks to go until polling day, most parties have now released their manifestos. In this post, Lisa James summarises their key pledges on the constitution, covering parliamentary reform, standards, the rule of law and rights protection, elections and public participation, media and democratic discourse, devolution and Europe.
With the 4 July general election fast approaching, political parties are releasing their manifestos. Though much of the election campaign has focused on the economy and public services, several of the manifestos also contain significant constitutional policy pledges. This post summarises the key commitments on the constitution, covering the manifestos of the main parties in Great Britain: the Labour Party, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Green Party, Reform UK, Plaid Cymru and Scottish National Party.
Parliament
The most striking commitment in relation to the House of Commons comes from Labour, which proposes a Modernisation Committee charged with assessing procedure, and improving standards and working practices. The party also proposes to grasp the nettle of House of Lords reform, pledging to scrap the remaining hereditary peers, introduce an age limit of 80 and ‘a new participation requirement’, and introduce reforms to ‘ensure the quality of new appointments’ and improve territorial diversity. Longer-term, the party commits to replacing the House of Lords with an ‘alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations’, and pledges to consult on proposals for doing so.
Lords reform is also pledged by the Green Party, which proposes replacement with an elected second chamber, and the Liberal Democrats (who propose to reform the chamber to have a ‘proper democratic mandate’ but offer no more detail). Reform UK proposes to replace the House of Lords with a ‘much smaller, more democratic second chamber’ – though it leaves further detail ‘to be debated’. The SNP supports abolition. The Liberal Democrats also propose strengthening parliament’s powers in relation to the calling of elections, trade deals, and military intervention. The Conservative manifesto contains nothing on the role of parliament.
Continue readingChanges in electoral practice since 2019
The coming general election is the UK’s first in approaching five years. Many changes have happened in how elections are done – partly through legislation, but partly also through informal shifts in the media, AI, and electoral administration. In this post, Sanjana Balakrishnan summarises all that is new.
The general election on 4 July will be the UK’s first since 2019. The intervening years have seen many changes to electoral process. These include important amendments in electoral law – most notably, but not exclusively, through the Elections Act 2022. They also include more informal shifts in, for example, the operating practices of social media companies and the capacity of local electoral administrators.
The breadth of these institutional changes means that July’s vote will be different from any previous UK general election. This post surveys the key points. It begins with legislative changes (on which the Hansard Society has offered an excellent and more detailed account) before turning to other innovations.
Elections Act 2022
The biggest set of reforms was introduced by the Elections Act 2022. Some of these changes related to local elections – see posts by the Unit’s Alan Renwick on mayoral and Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections. The focus here is on those relevant to parliamentary elections.
Continue readingThe new voting system for mayors and PCCs: how it affects democracy
This month’s elections for mayors and police and crime commissioners were contested under a revised voting system. In a post published yesterday, Alan Renwick found that this change had a substantial impact on the results, to the benefit of the Conservatives. Here, he concludes that it also harmed democracy.
Elections of mayors and police and crime commissioners (PCCs) were previously held under the Supplementary Vote (SV) system, where each voter could express first and second preferences. Now they take place using First Past the Post (FPTP), where there is a vote for a single candidate. The previous post in this series showed that this change produced a marked shift in the outcome of the elections held earlier this month, and that it did so entirely to the benefit of the Conservatives.
That a change in the rules should favour those in power who instigated it is already cause for concern: democracy requires a level playing field. But ministers might defend the reform on the basis that the new system is superior on democratic grounds to its predecessor and that it was introduced fairly. Both of these claims therefore require interrogation. How do the two systems compare in terms of democratic quality? And was the process through which the change in voting system came about appropriate?
Which voting system is more democratic?
As I outlined in a blogpost published when the bill changing the voting system was before parliament in 2021, ministers argued that FPTP is the more democratic system: SV, they said, allows losing candidates – those coming second in terms of first preferences – to win. But this argument is circular: it works only if we have already accepted the FPTP definitions of ‘winner’ and ‘loser’.
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