Parliamentary Democracy and Standards in Public Life

Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on initiating this debate. She raises some important questions. Parliamentary democracy is now under threat, not least as elected Governments seek to tackle problems that often go beyond their borders and with a public who respond to the failure to tackle those problems by embracing the calls of populist politicians. Some democracies, such as the United States, have a history of populist movements—a tendency now writ large—but we see it elsewhere as well, not least in some nations of Europe.

In the United Kingdom, we have largely managed, so far, to resist that trend, and the reason for that rests in the fundamental nature of our parliamentary democracy. Those calling for a codified constitution largely miss the point of what sustains the institutions of the state. Some nations have codified constitutions, but no culture of constitutionalism. By that, I mean an acceptance at mass and elite level of the legitimacy of the constitutional processes. That is what underpins the rule of law. We have a culture of constitutionalism that is so well embedded that it has facilitated our uncodified constitution and has provided stability through the fact that the constitution does not impose an unwieldy straitjacket. We benefit from a culture that has reinforced the value of that system. Some of the basic rules of society are so well ingrained that it is not necessary to enshrine them formally.

That culture still pertains, and it is essential to our well-being as a nation. If we start to move to a more formalised system, we are in danger of creating a society with some degree of rigidity. Problems with maintaining standards in public life have undermined confidence in the system, but that is an argument for recognising and bolstering the core culture, not an argument for eroding it.

Institutions matter, but in terms of public trust, the focus is on those who occupy them. We have seen some officeholders exhibit an egregious disregard of standards in recent years. We need to avoid displacement activity—advancing constitutional reform as if that is the answer—and instead we need to focus on behaviour. We need to embed a culture of responsibility and, instead of blaming our constitution, we need to be reflecting on how we recruit public officials, how we tighten the regulatory framework and how we inculcate a commitment to delivering outputs in the best interests of the nation.