UK Constitution: Oversight and Responsibility (Report from the Constitution Committee)

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Friday 4th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beith, for the committee’s work and for his clear and comprehensive introduction today. I thank the committee for taking on the difficult—indeed, impossible—task of trying to find ways, within the limits of its mandate, to prop up a tottering, failing system. I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, for reasons I will come back to later.

If we start where the committee starts, paragraph 3 of the report says that the system is “uncodified and flexible”, and cites the Supreme Court from 2019: our system

“remains sufficiently flexible to be capable of further development”.

I am afraid that there is a tone there of protesting too much. The vehemency is a measure of desperation. We are stuck, rather visibly, somewhere between the 16th and the 19th centuries. That is rather acknowledged in paragraph 5, where the committee says that the constitution is

“vulnerable to erosion and challenge, and relies to a considerable extent upon individuals respecting and complying with constitutional norms”.

The noble Lord, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, very clearly set out how much that is not happening.

I begin with a practical example. This week marks the 10th anniversary of the slaughter of Cecil the lion by a vile American trophy hunter in Zimbabwe. That reminds me of a disgraceful evening in your Lordships’ House, on 12 September 2023. A Bill had gone through the elected House with the support of all sides. We saw in this House 12 former public schoolboys drive a cart and horses through what we have always been told are the respected traditions of the House—the unwritten, uncodified rules—to filibuster the Hunting Trophies (Importation Prohibition) Bill. The unwritten rules demonstrably were not worth the paper that they were not written on.

The committee’s report refers to the

“primacy of the Prime Minister in safeguarding the constitution”.

There is an obvious, glaring weakness there if our constitution relies on one person. That is not the way for a constitution to organise a structure. More than that, I point out the position of the Prime Minister. Our current Prime Minister and his party, after a landslide election, have the support of 34% of people who voted in the general election last year. If we look at eligible voters, we find that the Prime Minister has the support of 20% of them. Of course, we do not elect the Prime Minister; we elect MPs. If we look at who elected our current Prime Minister, of the people of Holborn and St Pancras who voted, less than half of them voted for Sir Keir Starmer. We are putting all the weight of our constitution on this one person, on those incredibly fragile foundations.

Is it any wonder—a lot of Members of your Lordship’s House commented on this—that, at the start of this year, there was a Channel 4 poll in which 52% of 13 to 27 year-olds said that the UK would be in a better place with a strong leader who does not have to bother with Parliament and elections. I remind your Lordships that that is where we are today. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, said, a wide range of people now regard the idea of coming into Parliament as poison. That is a measure of the problems with where we are.

How about, instead, we start to think much more broadly? I absolutely do not fault the committee for not doing this—I am sure it did not regard this as within its mandate. How about we think about having a proper, modern, democratic, functional constitution? That is where we have to go, because it is not what we have now. We can see the impact of this in the state of the nation—we could even say in the state of this building. It is easy to blame individuals—and I do, very often—but why do we keep having failing Government after failing Government after failing Government? We have to look at the constitutional and institutional structures.

I come to a more specific point. In chapter 5 of the report, about the Council of the Nations and Regions, the committee says:

“The Government should set out who within the UK Government is responsible for the Council of the Nations and Regions”.


It is clear that this is being taken so seriously that we have no idea who is responsible for something that will meet every six months and bring together elected mayors who represent some parts of the country. Again, we are going to see first past the post elections, with elected mayors who may well be elected with 25% to 30% of the vote. That is who is going to be speaking for their regions. These are devolution plans imposed from Westminster.

I come to a very specific point here. It is interesting that this entire report makes no mention of local councils, which are at least rather more representative local organisations. They are not included in the Council of the Nations and Regions. I point to a ministerial Statement in June, when the Government declared that councils must have a leader and cabinet model. This is Westminster directing how local councils should work. This is supposed to ensure that local communities will have the right mechanism to engage with their council. I have a question for the Minister directly. The people of Bristol in 2022 and the people of Sheffield in 2021, through a grass-roots campaign and a referendum of the whole city, decided that they want committee structures in their councils. Are the Government really going to overrule that basic piece of democracy?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Probably.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I hear “probably” from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, and I fear that that may be right.

Having just been at the Local Government Association conference in Liverpool, I warn the Minister and the Government that there will be resistance to the plans to abolish district councils—the form of government closest to the people. People are going to fight.

I come to my concluding sentence. We cannot rely on good chaps suddenly discovering a sense of responsibility and honesty. Institutional structures do not support “good chap” behaviour. The Select Committee is trying valiantly to shore up something that is not working. We need to think about getting a modern, functional, democratic constitution for the UK.