Next week, a new Senedd will be elected in Wales, using an altered electoral system. The result will be an enlarged Senedd, with more members than previous incarnations. Jess Blair explains the changes that have been made, analyses their pros and cons, and argues that the chosen electoral system of closed lists should be replaced with the Single Transferable Vote system (STV).
Continue reading
2020 marked the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the House of Commons’ Backbench Business Committee – an event that marked the first major reversal of a century-long trend of the government taking increasing control of the agenda of the House. But the anniversary went largely unnoticed. Paul Evans, a former Clerk of the committee, asks whether this is because it has been outmanoeuvred by the usual channels, has lost its cutting edge, or because relative obscurity is what backbenchers really want.
The birth of the Backbench Business Committee
The background to how the Committee on Reform of the House of Commons (commonly known, after its chair Dr Tony Wright, as the ‘Wright Committee’) was established can be found, for those interested, in the introduction to its first report. Amongst the matters the House instructed it to consider, when it was set up on 20 July 2009, was the ‘scheduling of business by the House’. It recommended the creation of a new category of ‘backbench business’, to be managed by a new committee of backbenchers, a new ‘House Business Committee’ to bring transparency to the way in which the House’s wider agenda was determined, and a system by which the House as a whole would be given the final say on its agenda. Many of these ideas had been foreshadowed in a Constitution Unit report published in 2007.
After an inconclusive debate on the proposals of the Wright Committee on 22 February 2010, on 4 March, amongst other reforms arising from the committee’s recommendations (most significantly on the election of chairs and members of select committees) the House agreed that a proposal for the establishment of the Backbench Business Committee should be brought to it by the government (emphasis very deliberately added) before the start of the next parliament, and that a House Business Committee should be established during the course of that new parliament. In fact, as everyone knew at the time, the timetable for doing so was well-nigh impossible. The parliament was dissolved on 12 April, just 20 sitting days after the 4 March debate. That could have been the last we heard of the recommendations on new ways to schedule the House’s business.
Continue reading
The Government of Ireland Act 1920 is 100 years old tomorrow. David Torrance examines the legislation and its impact, arguing that a number of the constitutional conventions that regulate relations between Westminster and Holyrood have roots in those that applied to Stormont between 1920 and 1972.
Wednesday 23 December marks the centenary of royal assent for the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (the ‘1920 Act’). That this created the part of the UK known as ‘Northern Ireland’ and its border is well known, but its devolution settlement – a parliament, government, governor and prime minister – has largely faded from public consciousness.
As the historian Graham Walker has observed, Northern Ireland ‘serves as a reminder that devolution and constitutional change has a long, complex, and fascinating history, and did not just appear magically at the end of the twentieth century’ [1]. Indeed, this blog will argue that many of the constitutional conventions now associated with Holyrood-Westminster relations have antecedents in those which developed between Stormont and the UK parliament between 1921 and 1972. There was also one major difference, self-determination, analysis of which concludes this piece.
A ‘sound custom’ of non-interference
Speaking during Lords consideration of the Scotland Bill in 1998, Lord Sewel observed that ‘as happened in Northern Ireland earlier in the century’ the government would expect ‘a convention to be established that Westminster would not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters in Scotland without the consent of the Scottish parliament’. This would later come to be known as the Sewel convention.
The Northern Ireland precedent acknowledged by Lord Sewel was established in 1922 when Home Secretary Edward Shortt (who had responsibility for GB-NI relations at the time, as there was no Northern Ireland Office) advised withholding royal assent for a bill abolishing the Single Transferable Vote method for local government elections (a matter ‘transferred’ to Belfast). When Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister Sir James Craig and his Cabinet threatened to resign, assent was granted.
By 1953, a Treasury document could state that:
Continue readingIn practice the United Kingdom Parliament refrains from legislating on matters with which the Northern Ireland Parliament can deal, except at the request and with the consent of Northern Ireland. It is recognised that any departure from this practice would be open to objection as impairing the responsibility which has been placed on the Northern Ireland Parliament and Government.
HM Treasury, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man: A Treasury Paper, December 1953, page 9
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
Last week, voters across the UK (and indeed, across the European Union) took part in the European Parliament elections. Now that we know the outcome, Alan Renwick examines the impact on the results of both the rules that governed the election and the strategies of the parties.
The European elections raised important questions about how the voting system – and parties’ and voters’ reactions to it – might influence the results. Would the imperfect proportionality of the system harm the smaller parties? Should those parties – particularly the three Britain-wide anti-Brexit parties – have formed an alliance? Could voters maximise the impact of their ballots through tactical voting? Now that the results are in, it is time to take stock.
The impact of the rules
As I set out in an earlier post, European Parliament elections in Great Britain use a list-based system of proportional representation (while those in Northern Ireland use Single Transferable vote, or STV). This system is proportional, but not very. The D’Hondt formula for allocating seats favours larger parties. So does the fact that the number of seats available in each region (ranging from three in the North East of England to ten in the South East) is fairly low.
The results would certainly have been different had the elections been held using First Past the Post, as was the case for European elections in Great Britain before 1999. This system, still used for Westminster elections, awards a seat to the largest party in each constituency. Had voters cast the same votes as they did on Thursday, the Brexit Party would under First Past the Post have won almost every seat in England and Wales outside London and the Home Counties; the Liberal Democrats and Labour would have dominated in London and parts of its environs; the SNP would have captured every seat in Scotland; and the Conservatives would have been wiped out. In fact, many voters would not have cast the same votes as they did. For example, the anti-Brexit parties could probably have agreed joint candidates much more easily than under the actual system, helping them to secure some extra seats. But the Brexit Party would very likely still have scooped up most seats on less than a third of the vote. Continue reading