There have been few significant changes to the British constitution since 1997. Analyse and evaluate this statement.

by theboredominflictorshameonmegm (student)

‘There have been few significant changes to the British constitution since 1997.’ Analyse and evaluate this statement. [25 marks]

There have been many constitutional changes of various significance introduced since 1997, by both the New Labour government (1997 - 2010) and the Conservative - Liberal Democrat Coalition government (2010 - 2015). By examining a number of key areas we can assess how successful these changes have been, as well as the possible need for further constitutional reform.

One type of constitutional change is that of democratisation, which could be seen as being unsuccessful due to the lack of engagement by the British public. For example, in 2000 the Local Government Act was put into place by the New Labour Government which gave power to local authorities in order to promote economic, social and environmental well being within their boundaries but crucially to introduce directly elected mayors. This may sound reasonable in theory, but in practice it was largely unsuccessful; the majority of cities have rejected this proposal. For example, in 2016 Torbay voted to get rid of the position after approving it in 2005 and 62.5% instead chose to have a leader and cabinet system. The turnout in most of these referendums has generally been atrocious, showing that perhaps people just don’t care too much about local government - only 15% of the electorate voted in the mayoral election in Middlesbrough in 2013. Therefore, surely it would make more sense to have people more informed on and involved with the issues of the locality voting on the leader rather than the general public who, quite clearly, aren't all that bothered? The poor turnout in these types of elections shows the uselessness and thus insignificance of this type of constitutional reform.

However, you could argue that despite a few problems in smaller and less populated areas, democratisation on the whole has been largely successful. People in larger cities have more autonomy over the way they are governed, and the elections for Mayor of London have had increasingly higher voter turnouts with 42% voting in the 2021 election which Labour candidate Sadiq Khan won. In 2017, prominent Labour politician Andy Burnham was elected as the Mayor of Manchester, with 573,543 people participating. These posts are not ceremonial and they do effect change, proving that these types of positions are necessary for ...

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Some people may disagree with this statement, as they believe that modernisation of political institutions have had a large impact on British politics, and the combination of the various acts and bills have ensured that the second chamber of parliament has undergone significant changes since 1997. It has long been an ambition of the Labour Party to tackle what it has seen as both an anachronism and a symbol of class privilege in Britain, and the House of Lords Act 1999 in particular started this process. It removed all but 92 hereditary peers and allowed for the introduction of more nominated life peers, including so-called “people’s peers”. This began the procedure of making the Lords more representative of the modern British public, allowing for more representation of some marginalised groups in western politics, such as BAME or members of the LGBTQ+ community and ensuring that the people in the Lords are well qualified and keen to do their roles. The significance of the process of modernisation to one of the most integral parts of parliament should not be understated, and clearly shows the importance of having an unentrenched constitution to make changes to.

In conclusion, I disagree with this statement as I believe that there have been many significant changes to the British constitution since 1997, not just the ones aforementioned but also including the establishment of devolved legislative bodies in constituent countries of the UK (also known as devolution) and the gradual introduction of more human rights legislation. However, I do think that there is further constitutional reform needed such as introducing an elected component to the House of Lords as despite the changes made, the makeup of the second chamber still does not reflect the social and demographic diversity of the UK, and there is a distinct under representation of ethnic minorities, women, and young people.

There have been few significant changes to the British constitution since 1997. Analyse and evaluate this statement.

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