On 27 October 2023 the controversial Online Safety Bill received Royal Assent and was enacted into law. The Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA), which the Government claims will make the UK the ‘safest place in the world to be online’, … [Read more...] about The Online Safety Act: scrutiny, safeguards and civil liberties
The defenestration of Suella Braverman from the Home Office, after the Fareham MP wrote a wildcat Times article criticising the police’s handling of pro-Palestinian protests, has highlighted the delicate and ill-defined relationship between the … [Read more...] about The police and the constitution
In its response to the Public Administration Select Committee’s 2010 report, Goats and Tsars: Ministerial and other appointments from outside Parliament, the UK Government (led at the time by Prime Minister David Cameron) agreed with the … [Read more...] about Jobs for the boys: The exceptional Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton
It felt like the King’s Speech should have been a bigger event. I was sat watching the King and Queen arrive in Westminster from my office window. I refused an offer to go see him close-up that morning and instead opted out for a packet of Walkers … [Read more...] about A King’s Speech fit for a dying government
For citizens in a modern democratic society, knowledge and the access to it is a necessity to enable us to keep the powerful in check. It is curious, then, that among the initiatives most regretted by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, was the … [Read more...] about The Guards Can’t Guard Themselves
The Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) is the Government’s centre of expertise, infrastructure and major projects. It gave HS2 an ‘unachievable’ rating in its latest Annual Report, where it noted huge issues around budget, … [Read more...] about HS2 and the constitutional issues of infrastructure
Introduction In Part 1 of this piece I summarised the role of Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (SLSC) and some trends that it had flagged during the last parliamentary session. Broadly speaking, these included: (1) a … [Read more...] about Spotlight on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee – Part 2
In 2019 the Welsh Government published a document, Reforming our Union: Shared Governance in the UK. It reissued an updated version in 2021 in which the First Minister, Mark Drakeford, stated that: Too often we see the … [Read more...] about Welsh Devolution: The State of Intergovernmental Relations
On 23 March 2020, during a televised broadcast to the nation, the Prime Minister announced the Government’s intention to impose an immediate ‘stay at home’ order on the entirety of the UK. During the broadcast it was made clear that these new … [Read more...] about The Dangers of Governance by Guidance
In November 2021, two parliamentary committees declared that the use and overbreadth of delegated legislation had shifted power irreparably away from Parliament and that only a total “reset” would suffice. One of them, the Secondary Legislation … [Read more...] about Spotlight on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee – Part 1
Traditionally in Northern Ireland (or NI) mention of constitutional change has meant only one thing: United Kingdom (UK) vs United Ireland (UI). Known simply as ‘the constitutional question’, the issue to which this juxtaposition points – … [Read more...] about Northern Ireland and its (other) constitutional issues
Journalists often ask, as they asked at the time, whether the Johnson government was corrupt. My response at the time was that 'there was more corruption and corruption risk in and around this government than any British government since … [Read more...] about Revisited: Is Britain ‘Politically Corrupt’?
