rebecca- coalition consitutional reform

• Although some significant changes were made to the constitution most of the significant changes during the coalition government were stalled, or watered-down.
• Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, 2011


  • Designed to prevent the Prime Minister from calling a snap election. 
  • 5-year parliamentary terms were enforced by statute 
  • Produced in the hope that it would create some stability for the coalition government 
  • 2 snap elections have taken place since the introduction of the Act, in 2017 and 2019 
  • Ultimately the act was considered counter-productive and was repealed by Johnson’s government in 2022
• Scotland Act, 2012


  • This was the first significant continuation of reforms toward devolution that had defined new labour 
  • The Act allowed the Scottish government to further vary tax arrangements, as well as giving it some more powers 

  Some critics believe that the Act would lead to the break up of the UK, which almost happened in 2014 with the Scottish independence referendum.
• Protection of Freedoms Act, 2012


  This Act guaranteed that security services would be scrutinised properly when examining the members of the population, increasing the constitutional protection of rights.
• House of Lords Reform Act, 2014


  
  

  • The Conservative manifesto stated that they wanted to introduce a mostly elected second chamber by 2015 
  • The coalition government introduced a HoL reform Bill which proposed reducing the chamber to 450 members, with 80% being elected. This was abandoned due to a revolt from some Conservative MPs 
  • The HoL Reform Act did help bring peers to account by introducing resignation, meaning they could be removed from the chamber for misconduct.
• Wales Act, 2014


  • This was a further continuation of devolution. It gave Wales small amounts of control over tax, although this was to a lesser extent than had been outlined in the Scotland Act. 

  Although this act was being passed at the same time as the Scottish referendum, the government was not deterred from introducing further constitutional reform to encourage devolution.