House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee Consultation on A new Magna Carta? Seventh Report of Session 2014–15 Report, together with formal minutes relating to the report Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 3 March 2015 HC 599 Published on 9 March 2015 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00 Political and Constitutional Reform Committee Mr Graham Allen MP (Labour, Nottingham North) (Chair) Mr Christopher Chope MP (Conservative, Christchurch) Tracey Crouch MP (Conservative, Chatham and Aylesford) Mark Durkan MP (Social Democratic & Labour Party, Foyle) Paul Flynn MP (Labour, Newport West) Duncan Hames MP (Liberal Democrats, Chippenham) Fabian Hamilton MP (Labour, Leeds North East) David Morris MP (Conservative, Morecambe and Lunesdale) Robert Neill MP (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst) Chris Ruane MP (Labour, Vale of Clwyd) Mr Andrew Turner MP (Conservative, Isle of Wight) The following Members were also members of the Committee during the Parliament: Mr Jeremy Browne MP (Liberal Democrat, Taunton Deane) Sheila Gilmore MP (Labour, Edinburgh East) Andrew Griffiths MP (Conservative, Burton) Simon Hart MP (Conservative, Camarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) Tristram Hunt MP (Labour, Stoke on Trent Central) Mrs Eleanor Laing MP (Conservative, Epping Forest) Stephen Williams MP (Liberal Democrat, Bristol West) Yasmin Qureshi MP (Labour, Bolton South East) Powers The Committee’s powers are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in Temporary Standing Order (Political and Constitutional Reform Committee). These are available on the Internet via www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmstords.htm Publication Committee reports are published on the Committee’s website at www.parliament.uk/PCRC- publications and by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. Evidence relating to this report is published on the Committee’s website at www.parliament.uk/new- magna-carta-consultation Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Martyn Atkins (Clerk), Edward Faulkner (Committee Specialist), Ami Cochrane (Legal Assistant), Tony Catinella (Senior Committee Assistant), Nerys Davies (Campaign Co-ordinator), James Camp (Committee Assistant) and Jessica Bridges-Palmer (Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, House of Commons, 14 Tothill Street, London SW1H 9NB. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 0737; the Committee’s email address is [email protected] Consultation on A new Magna Carta? 1 Contents Report Page 1 Consulting on A new Magna Carta? 3 Background 3 Activities to promote the consultation 5 Seminars and conferences 5 Other consultation activities 5 Use of social media 6 Responses and levels of engagement 7 2 Themes from consultation responses 9 Is the time right for constitutional reform? 10 A constitutional convention for the UK 11 A ‘constitutional moment’? 12 Is a written constitution necessary? 14 Should codification start from here? 15 How should codification be approached? 16 Our view 16 3 Further work 18 Other initiatives for constitutional renewal 18 Amendments to the blueprints 18 Consideration by the House in the 2015 Parliament 18 A draft accessible summary constitution, with options for reform 19 Conclusions and recommendations 20 Annex: A draft accessible summary constitution, with options for reform 22 Appendix 1: Winning entries in the Committee’s competition to find a preamble for a written constitution for the UK 34 Appendix 2: Proceedings of the Committee’s conference A new Magna Carta? A constitution for the 21st century, held in Portcullis House on 11 December 2014 37 Morning session: 2015—time for a ‘constitutional moment’? 37 Welcome and opening remarks 37 Professor Vernon Bogdanor: What are the prospects for constitutional reform in 2015? 42 Professor Dawn Oliver: Constitutional codification: options and challenges 45 Questions and discussion 49 Dr Andrew Blick: How should democratic principles and a settlement for the Union be reflected in a written constitution? 58 Richard Gordon QC: Reform or continuity: should a codified constitution include elements of reform or attempt to describe the UK’s current constitutional arrangements? 63 Questions and discussion 67 2 Consultation on A new Magna Carta? Afternoon session: British democracy and a written constitution 74 Dr Michele Olivier: What type of body or convention should prepare a written UK constitution? 74 Professor Ian Cram: Can agreement be reached on a Bill of Rights for the constitution? 78 Questions and discussion 83 Professor Roger Mortimore: What constitutional changes could engage the public in politics? 92 Nick Pearce: A written constitution: what’s in it for the public? 96 Alexandra Runswick, Unlocking Magna Carta: responses from the public 102 Questions and discussion 105 Closing remarks 112 Formal Minutes 114 Published written evidence 115 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 119 Consultation on A new Magna Carta? 3 1 Consulting on A new Magna Carta? 1. On 10 July 2014 the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the House of Commons launched a broad consultation on the question of codification of the United Kingdom’s constitution.1 We published three illustrative blueprints for a codified constitution—a Constitutional Code, a Constitutional Consolidation Act and a written constitution—prepared for us by the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies at King’s College London, and framed our consultation around three questions: • Does the UK need a codified constitution? • If so, which of the three options offers the best way forward? • What needs to be included in/excluded from your favoured option if you have one? 2. We said that the initial consultation would close on 1 January 2015.The level of public involvement in this consultation has been unprecedented for this Committee, with over 3,000 separate interactions with the Select Committee. We report below on the conduct of the consultation and the activities organised to promote the Committee’s work, and on a number of themes which have emerged from the responses to our consultation. We do not intend discussion of constitutional proposals to end here, and we have proposed a draft accessible summary of the UK’s constitution, with illustrative options for reform, to inform continuing debate on codifying our democratic settlement throughout the General Election campaign, the Magna Carta anniversary year and beyond. Background 3. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee was established by the House of Commons in June 2010 with a remit to consider political and constitutional reform. The proposal by the coalition Government to establish fixed-term parliaments of five years, enacted in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, gave the Committee the freedom to plan a programme of work more expansive in scope than select committees before 2010 had generally been able to contemplate. 4. In September 2010 the Committee, in a unique innovation, accepted a proposal from asked the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies at King’s College London to collaborate on an inquiry entitled Mapping the path to codifying—or not codifying—the UK’s Constitution. At our request the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies, under the direction of Professor Robert Blackburn, produced a series of research papers for the Committee, including a literature review and a comparative study of 23 international examples of constitutional codification. The last of these research papers, prepared to inform the Committee’s inquiry and the policy debate on constitutional codification more widely, was delivered to the Committee in June 2014 and published as an appendix to the Committee’s report entitled A new Magna Carta? The paper contained a number of elements: 1 Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, Second Report of Session 2014-15, A new Magna Carta?, HC 463. 4 Consultation on A new Magna Carta? • a chapter setting out arguments for and against a codified constitution • a chapter setting out the process that could be adopted in the preparation, design and implementation of a codified constitution • three illustrative blueprints—a Constitutional Code, a Constitutional Consolidation Act, and a written constitution—which indicate how a codified constitution for the UK could take shape. 5. We published the paper to inform debate on constitutional codification as the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta and the 2015 General Election approached: as our report stated, “what we are publishing now represents the most comprehensive attempt so far to provide different detailed models of a codified constitution for comparison and consideration”. We hope that this consciously large document of 423 pages continues to act as a resource for all politicians and electors who have an interest in codification of the UK’s democratic arrangements. 6. We made clear in our report that we did not endorse one view or the other in the debate on codification: the three models of codification were published to inform and advance the debate on the desirability or otherwise of codification. Our stated aim was “to ensure that, if and when a decision is taken to make progress [on constitutional codification], a thoroughly scrutinised and properly devised plan is already in place to achieve a successful outcome.”2 7. We also made clear that, although the written constitution blueprint