Is There A Need For Constitutional Reform?

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Daniel Jenkins

12Et

Is There A Need For Constitutional Reform?

No government in modern times has ever been elected with such a commitment to reforming the constitution as the Labour administration that won office in May 1997. Within months of its election, Scotland and Wales were on the road to devolution. Within a year, although in a very different context, the framework had been set for a devolved, power sharing government in Northern Ireland. A year after that the process was well under way for reform of the House of Lords, eliminating, in the first instance, peers whose place in the legislature was by inheritance. In May 2000, London elected its first mayor. In early 2003, there was the affirmation of a commitment to allow English regions to choose to elect assemblies. Then in the Cabinet reshuffle of June 2003 it was signalled that the post of Lord Chancellor would be abolished and the judicial functions of the House of Lords transferred lo a Supreme Court. Above all, the government held out the promise of Britain signing up to a European constitution sometime in 2004-5, which would formally subjugate British law to European law and have many other consequences for political accountability in Britain.

All in all, it would seem that the government can look back upon a programme of continuing constitutional reform that far exceeds anything accomplished by its recent predecessors and which amounts to the upholding of promises made at the time of the 1997 general election.

But how far are these things achievements? How far do they keep promises made at the election, and subsequently? And, above all, how far have they led to the better governance of Britain, and have they been a good use of legislative time and taxpayers' money that might have been better deployed? Let us start with devolution. In Scotland, the feeling of alienation after years of what was perceived as rule by English Conservatives made the result of the devolution referendum in September 1997 a foregone conclusion. Labour's main concern was to win the ensuing election for the Scottish Parliament in May 1999, which it did by a less comfortable margin than expected, and to ensure a relatively obedient administration in Edinburgh. This proved more problematical. Labour could govern only with the help of the Liberal Democrats, and it turned out to be a coalition that damaged both parties in terms of their popular support. The Hamilton by-election of September 1999 was won only narrowly by Labour after a surge in support for the Scottish National Party, and the Lib-Dems came a poor sixth. Former Labour supporters saw their party still taking orders from London; former Lib-Dems felt that their party was colluding too openly in this compliant government, and there was particular anger about the Lib-Dems' failure to stand on the point of principle of opposing tuition fees in Scottish universities. By the time of the second elections in May 2003, the main feature of Scottish government was the row about the mounting cost of the new parliamentary buildings at Holyrood, and there was a growing sense among the Scots of the imperfection of the new institutions. Turnout was low, and the Scottish National Party, which had high hopes of exploiting devolution as a stepping stone towards independence, declined relative to its 1999 performance.

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Wales's experience echoed many of these tensions after 1999. First, there was anger that the leader of the Labour group and eventual First Minister, Alun Michael, was imposed so forcefully by the party's headquarters in London. Before things had even reached that stage, however, a dismal turnout of barely 50 per cent in the original referendum suggested that the people of Wales were not nearly so interested in devolution as the political class - its most obvious beneficiaries - were. Devolution proceeded on the wishes of about 26 per cent of the Welsh population. Plaid Cymru, which suffixed its ...

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