The Cabinet Manual is an important guide to the workings of the UK’s uncodified constitution, providing an accessible roadmap for ministers, officials and the public. But the document has not been updated since its publication in 2011, despite some significant constitutional changes taking place. In this post, Lisa James argues that updating the Manual should be a government priority.
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The Constitution Unit’s annual conference takes place next week, bringing together a wide range of speakers to discuss ‘Labour’s Constitutional Agenda in Office’. Starting with a keynote address by Minister for the Cabinet Office Nick Thomas-Symonds, the conference will assess Labour’s performance so far, and its options for the future, across a range of constitutional policy areas. Ahead of the conference, Lisa James analyses the progress so far against the commitments in Labour’s manifesto.
Continue readingToday the Constitution Unit publishes a wide-ranging new report. The Constitutional Landscape: Options for Reform briefly summarises 31 areas of constitutional policy, describing the current state of affairs and the options for reform. In this post Lisa James, one of the report’s authors, explores its contents.
Continue readingThe Labour government has pledged to remove the remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords. With a bill to do so now in the Commons, Lisa James looks at the profiles of the sitting hereditary peers and asks how their removal might impact the second chamber.
The remaining hereditary peers will soon be removed from the House of Lords. The reform featured in the Labour manifesto and the new government’s first King’s speech; a short bill has recently been introduced into the House of Commons and will be debated later in the autumn. It will see the remaining hereditary peers removed at the end of the current session of parliament.
The reasons to remove the remaining hereditary peers include important normative ones, resting on the inappropriateness of hereditary status as a qualification to sit in parliament in a modern democracy. This normative argument is widely (if not universally) considered settled. Alongside principle sit political motives; the majority of hereditaries are Conservative (and only four are Labour). And in practical terms, their removal will reduce the size of the House, which is widely considered too large. This post focuses on the effects of the proposed change, asking how the removal of the hereditaries will affect the composition of the second chamber.
Background
The removal of the remaining hereditaries constitutes unfinished business from 25 years ago. For centuries the House of Lords was – excepting the bishops, and latterly the Law Lords – a hereditary body, with new peerages as a matter of course being created as hereditary titles. This changed in 1958, with the passage of the Life Peerages Act. Further fundamental reform followed in 1999, when Tony Blair’s Labour government removed the majority of hereditary peers from the chamber. The bill originally sought to remove all the hereditary peers, but this proved contentious in the Lords itself, and a compromise was brokered to allow it to pass. Thus 92 hereditary seats were retained (and a small number of other hereditary members were given life peerages). It is these final 92 seats which are now set to be abolished.
The remaining hereditaries are, counterintuitively, the only elected members of the House of Lords. Three different systems operate, according to the compromise reached in 1999. Two seats are reserved for the holders of roles linked to the royal family; 15 are chosen in elections by the whole of the House of Lords; and the remaining 75 are elected by the sitting hereditaries within the relevant party group. Among the latter by-elections, there have famously sometimes been more candidates than voters.
By-elections were paused via an amendment to the Standing Orders soon after this year’s King’s speech, in anticipation of the bill to remove the hereditaries, which was introduced to the Commons on 5 September. With a handful of seats currently vacant, there are now 88 hereditary peers sitting in the House of Lords.
Continue readingFollowing 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.
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