Constitutional Reform

• Human Rights Act 1998

  • built human rights into UK law so they can be defended in court
  • basic human rights enshrined in law
  • under new labour government
  • Incorporated ECHR into UK law
  • legislation passed must be compatible with EU law
• Freedom of information act 2000

  • under new labour government
  • gave greater access to information held by public bodies
  • Requires government departments and NHS to
  • publish & make publically avaliable information about their activities
  • allow for members of the public to request information
  • designed to promote transparency
  • in 2020 50% of requests were either fully or partially rejected
  • can cause conflict between individual vs collective rights
• The Scotland act 1998

  • under new labour government
  • Law that essentially set up Scottish parliament
  • allowed scotland freedom on devolved issues such as education, health and transport
  • some bigger issues like war, the constitution and relations with other countries still controlled by UK parliament
• House of Lords Act 1999

  • abolished the right of all but 92 hereditary peers to sit and vote in the upper house
  • under new labour
• Fixed term Parliament Act 2011

  • established fixed elections every 5 years and removed the Prime Ministers ability to call an election at an advantageous time
  • under coalition government 2010-2015
  • allowed coalition to work well and stable over a 5 year term
  • fairer on the junior coalition (liberal democrats) as they dont have to face an unexpected election
  • Act was only passed due to expenditure and political circumstances (ensuring neither party could become advantageous by pulling out before the 5 years are up)
  • lib dems seats fell from 57 to 9 in 2015, so it failed to protect the junior party
• Protection of Freedoms Act 2012

  • offered citizens greater protection from the state
  • under coalition government 2010-2015
  • scrutiny of security services and oversight into surveillance and data collection
• House of Lords Reform Act 2014

  • allowed peers to be removed due to criminal activity and non-attendance
  • gave existing peers the right to retire or resign
  • under coalition government 2010-2015
• Wales act 2014

  • under coalition government 2010-2015
  • transferred smaller taxes to some devolved institutes within wales
  • put in place the legal framework for wales to collect and manage taxes in the future
  • symbollically the act also changed the name of the welsh executive from the welsh assembly government to the welsh government
• English Votes for English Laws 2015


  The devolved powers of the UK were all able to vote on issues and policies within the UK but UK could not vote on issues specific to the devolved powers.

  • Speaker judges which parts of a bill relate to England
  • England-only committee considers bills deemed English
  • Membership of committee reflects number of Mps in each party

  Scrapped for being complex to implement and ultimately abolished in 2021
• Brexit

  • under conservative government 2015-ongoing
  • largest singular piece of constitutional reform
  • because of Brexit, a chunk of the Uk constitution was lost
  • Uk citizens could no longer vote in EU elections or be represented by MEPs
  • existing EU law in the UK can be repealed or amended with ease
• Devolution

  • Scotland Act 2016
  • Wales Act 2017
  • Both granted greater fiscal autonomy for each devolved power
  • Scottish nationalism has always been bigger than welsh nationalism and as a result scottish acts tend to get pushed through before a welsh act is
  • Southern wales has always typically been labour, but more western wales tends to be reperesented by plaid cymru