Lord President of the Council | The Constitution Unit Blog

Queen Elizabeth II sadly died yesterday, bringing to a close the longest reign in British history. Robert Hazell and Bob Morris offer a brief guide to what happens next, as King Charles III prepares for both the funeral of his predecessor and his own coronation. They also explore how the new king will have to adapt to his changed constitutional status.

At the age of 96 and after a record-breaking reign of 70 years, Queen Elizabeth II has died. A life of service to which she committed herself as a young woman has ended:

I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.

But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do: I know that your support will be unfailingly given. God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.

[Concluding words of a speech from South Africa on her 21^st birthday, 21 April 1947.]

As we mark this anniversary, it gives me pleasure to renew to you the pledge I gave in 1947 that my life will always be devoted to your service.

[Accession Day 70^th anniversary statement, 5 February 2022.]

There will be great public mourning for a woman who has been at the centre of the UK’s public life for so long, and many heartfelt tributes. It is not only for her longevity that she will be remembered, but also for her impeccable devotion to her public duties. In this post we explain what happens next, in terms of the accession of the new monarch, and plans for his coronation.

Demise

Demise is the technical term which relates both to the death of a sovereign and the passage of the crown to the heir. It embodies the old common law maxim ‘Rex nunquam moritur’, that is to say that the sovereign may die, but the crown never does: the heir’s succession is immediate on the death or abdication of a predecessor, so as to preserve the continuity of government. Thus, Charles is already King.

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In 1974, the Cabinet Office established a ‘Constitution Unit’ following a difficult birthing process, which operated until the election of the Thatcher government in 1979. It was this Unit that inspired our own founding Director, Robert Hazell, when naming the newly-formed Constitution Unit 25 years ago. As part of this latter Unit’s 25th anniversary, Joseph Ward examines its earlier namesake, its founding and work, and what lessons we can learn from its role within government.

The 1970s was a decade marked by rising distrust in Britain’s political institutions. Intransigent governing problems, from inflation to nascent nationalism, fuelled a narrative that Britain was in crisis. Commentators in both academia and the press talked of a crisis of ‘governability’, with the state seemingly unable to keep pace with the demands placed on it by the public.

In response to these trends, the Wilson government(s) of 1964–70 and 1974–76 instigated a series of constitutional reform measures. After creating the Kilbrandon Commission on the Constitution in 1969, Wilson sought to revisit the findings of the inquiry once returned to government in 1974, creating a bespoke Constitution Unit within the Cabinet Office to implement proposals for devolution to Scotland and Wales in particular. This ‘Constitution Unit’ was the conscious inspiration for the name adopted by UCL’s Constitution Unit when it was founded by Professor Robert Hazell in 1995, and which is currently celebrating its 25^th anniversary.

This blog post examines a selection of the Constitution Unit records held at the National Archives to document how the unit came about and to consider the struggles within the state over its remit. The political turbulence of that period, especially after James Callaghan succeeded Harold Wilson in 1976, presented the Unit with many challenges, as did the magnitude of its task. The post concludes with some reflections on the origins of the Unit to consider any lessons it might hold for constitutional reform in the contemporary context.

Foundations: The Kilbrandon Commission on the Constitution

In response to significant by-election wins for Plaid Cymru and the Scottish Nationalists in the late 1960s, Harold Wilson set up a Royal Commission on the Constitution in 1969, tasked with examination of ‘the present functions of the central legislature and government in relation to the several countries, nations and regions of the United Kingdom’ (Cmnd. 5460: 32). Its course was characterised by turbulence and disagreement: the commission took 4.5 years to report, more than one member resigned before it completed its work and the initial Chairman, Lord Crowther, died in 1972 midway through the inquiry.

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