Monitor 52 Constitution Unit Newsletter | October 2012
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Monitor 52 Constitution Unit Newsletter | October 2012 Lords reform: dead, or just resting? The biggest constitutional news of recent months was the dramatic for further reform. In the end, however, only a government bill is collapse of the government’s proposals for House of Lords reform. likely to succeed, which means that Nick Clegg must be persuaded Following the publication of the draft bill, and discussions by a of the merits. He presently looks unconvinced, but has emphasised parliamentary joint committee (see Monitor 51) a bill was formally repeatedly in the past that Lords reformers must not ‘make the best introduced into the Commons in late June, and had its second reading of the enemy of the good’. Now he needs to decide whether this was on 9-10 July. Its principle was approved comfortably, by 462 votes more than rhetoric. to 124. Nonetheless in August Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced at a specially-convened press conference that the bill had been dropped. He confirmed this in a Commons statement on EXECUTIVE 3 September. For seasoned Lords reform watchers these events were no surprise. It was always clear that the Conservatives were lukewarm on Lords reform, David Cameron having told supporters before the election that Civil Service reform: radical change it was a ‘third term issue’. Previous Commons votes on the subject had shown the Conservatives, like Labour, to be very split. As it turned In June 2012, Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, published out, while Cameron had pledged his support to Clegg for the reform, his civil service reform plan. Much of the review covered well-trodden his MPs were just not prepared to follow. Speech after speech by ground: the need to increase capacity, ensure more effective and Tory backbenchers criticised the proposals, and 91 rebelled in the efficient policy implementation and delivery, and so on. But there second reading vote. This passed thanks to Labour support, but both were some interesting developments. The first was the government’s the rebels and the Labour frontbench had stated that they would vote insistence upon far more stringent performance appraisal which against the ‘programme motion’ needed to ensure that the bill passed would recognise the top 25 per cent but also the bottom 10 per cent in reasonable time. In the face of certain defeat, the government of performers. The second was the determination to make policy withdrew the motion. Initial suggestions that Cameron would talk the more ‘contestable’, which in practice means obtaining advice from rebels round looked hopeless, and Clegg’s announcement followed. outside Whitehall. The final proposal was that ministers should have a In retaliation the Liberal Democrats now plan to vote against the greater choice in the appointment of permanent secretaries, and the boundary changes scheduled for 2015 (see p.2). introduction of short-term contracts for senior civil servants. So what happens next? One alternative is to shelve Lords reform until In early August 2012 Maude followed through on his call for more after the next election, when Labour probably sees it as a potential contestable policy advice, announcing he would commission from an bargaining chip to coax the Lib Dems into coalition. But they may organisation external to Whitehall a two-month review of government be no more able to deliver than the Conservatives. Tellingly, Labour structures of at least six other countries and the EU. The objective frontbenchers complained about various aspects of the package was to be comparison of their operation and accountability, identifying (such as long, nonrenewable electoral terms) when these selfsame best practices and making recommendations for how these could elements had featured in the previous government’s proposals in 2007 be best adopted in the UK. The price of the commissioned research and 2008. As some pointed out, this was essentially Jack Straw’s was £50,000 and was subject to a competitive tender. The successful bill. In truth Labour frontbenchers would struggle to get MPs through organisation is expected to produce a final report by the end of the lobbies in support of the detail of a largely elected chamber, even October 2012. The vast scope of the review and the short timescale if the principle is agreed. MPs fear many aspects of the proposals, in which it was expected to be completed raises questions about the such as local competition over constituency work; some also oppose legitimacy and validity of the project. Indeed, a number of think tanks elections by PR. Yet PR elections and long, nonrenewable terms declined to put in a tender, citing concerns about independence. are essential to distinguish an elected second chamber from the Commons. The biggest fear of all is that an elected second chamber Blog: www.constitution-unit.com would fundamentally upset the power balance at Westminster. All of Facebook & Flickr: Constitution Unit these concerns were set out clearly in the joint committee’s report, Follow us on Twitter: @ConUnit_UCL and featured heavily in the Commons debate. Constuon UCL Department of Political Science The alternative is to make progress with those few elements on Unit Blog Director: Professor Robert Hazell CBE which all agree that change is needed: the spiralling size of the www.constuon-unit.com Deputy Director: Dr Meg Russell chamber, the Prime Minister’s largely unregulated patronage powers, www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit the continuance of hereditary by-elections and the inability to expel Email: [email protected] serious criminals. These smaller changes are commonly referred to Phone: +44 (0) 20 7679 4977 as ‘the Steel bill’, but in fact the private peer’s bill moved by Lord Steel has been shorn of most of its content. Nonetheless, it has reached the Commons and could perhaps be picked up and used as a vehicle Monitor 52 | Constitution Unit Newsletter | October 2012 | ISSN 1465–4377 | Page 2 Parliament has also begun to probe the contours of the ministerial-civil be in place in time for the 2020 election – but with at least the same service relationship. In recent months there have been confrontations number of MPs as now, and perhaps a few more. between the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and various senior civil servants, prompting the then Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell If the Boundary Commissions complete their current task in 2013 but (now Lord O’Donnell) to write a letter criticising PAC for engaging their recommendations are then voted down by Parliament, the 2015 in ‘public humiliation’ of senior officials. The Lords Constitution election would be held in the current 650 constituencies. Much will Committee has also initiated an inquiry into the accountability of civil then depend on who wins that election. If the Conservatives, they will servants, and the Institute for Government launched a new strand of presumably retain the current legislation. The Boundary Commissions work in Accountability in central government. will, under the 2011 Act, start their next review in 2015-2016, to produce a House of 600 members by October 2018, for use at the 2020 election. The coalition government’s civil service reform plan can be found here. If Labour forms a government in 2015 it may well repeal the 2011 Register of lobbyists legislation, which it vigorously opposed. The Boundary Commissions would then have to begin a new review based on the rules set out On 13 July, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the Boundary Commissions Act 1986. Under those conditions, released its report on the government’s proposals to introduce a it is unlikely that that review would be completed in time for new statutory register of lobbyists. On the whole, the report was highly constituencies to be in place for the 2020 general election. An election critical of the government’s proposals. It suggested that they be would then be held in 2020 in the 650 constituencies based on data scrapped as they would ‘do nothing to improve transparency and some twenty years old, with very substantial electoral inequality. accountability about lobbying…and could paradoxically lead to less regulation of the lobbying industry’. Finally, if the Commissions’ recommendations for 600 new constituencies are accepted by Parliament in 2013 and used for After critiquing the government’s plans, the committee examined the 2015 general election, what happens next remains a matter of existing registers across the world and suggested that the government conjecture. If Labour wins then it will probably seek to amend the Act, consider a system of ‘medium regulation’ similar in scope to that of and the outcome could well be another new set of constituencies. If the EU’s Transparency Register. Such a register would, among other the Conservatives win, they are more likely to retain the current rules – things, include a broader definition of lobbyist (potentially including though some at least of their MPs are uneasy about them. groups such as ‘in-house lobbyists, trade associations, trade unions, think tanks, campaign groups and charities’); require disclosure of the If a week is a long time in politics, a year is a geological era, and issues discussed; make reference to either a new statutory code of much may happen to change Mr Clegg’s stance – if not that of his conduct and/or industry-wide ones; and incorporate existing publically Conservative partners – before the Boundary Commissions’ current available information on ministerial meetings. Crucially, however, this reviews are placed before Parliament. But if those new constituencies register would not include detailed information on lobbyist spending, are not in place in time for the 2015 general election, the result will as characterises ‘highly regulated’ systems in the United States and not only be a larger House of Commons than that legislated for in the Canada, due to the high cost of administering and verifying such a coalition government’s early months, but also a very unsatisfactory, register in the current economic climate.