With a Commons majority of 174, the new Labour government seems unassailable. Sir Keir Starmer could theoretically enact a policy programme entirely of his choosing without fear of being stymied by the parliamentary arithmetic. A powerful position, certainly, but not as one-sided as it first appears. For while the numbers may be on Labour’s side, time is not.
The King’s speech listed a hefty three dozen bills to be laid before the House. An ambitious workload by any measure, but especially so given the current parliamentary calendar. The long summer recess – albeit slightly shorter than usual – is followed by only a brief September sitting before MPs disperse for another month to attend the party conferences. Realistically, the House cannot do any meaningful work on the heavy legislative programme until mid-October.
This spells danger for a government elected on a promise of ‘change’. Any sense of positive trajectory could rapidly dissipate if its agenda gets bogged down by parliamentary procedure and the creeping pace of primary legislation. Ministers will have to pick their battles to maintain what Americans call The Big Mo – the forward momentum, real or perceived, which is vital for political success.
That means many aspects of Labour’s manifesto will have to be sidelined, and it’s the big-ticket constitutional changes which seem destined for the legislative slow lane. Lowering the minimum voting age to 16 and significant reform of the House of Lords were eye-catching measures proposed during the election campaign. But both risk eating up valuable parliamentary time – especially in the upper House – whilst making no direct contribution to Sir Keir’s core commitment around economic growth.
So, if Labour wants to earn its stripes as a restlessly reforming government when it comes to constitutional matters, in the widest sense, it needs to target some quick wins. What measures might it seek to introduce which would both satisfy the requirement for positive change and heed the need for speed?
The Ministerial Code
Stretched to its very limits in recent years, the Ministerial Code lays down the broad ethical and legal rules that ministers should follow. It’s a wide-ranging and largely non-specific document, covering general themes such as accountability, integrity and confidentiality. But it has two main shortcomings. Firstly, it’s showing its age; the Code was first conceived in 2010, and its last significant update was when Boris Johnson was PM. Secondly, and more seriously, the Code is the very epitome of toothlessness. This becomes obvious as early as paragraph 1.6: “The Prime Minister is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of a Minister and the appropriate consequences of a breach of those standards.”
In other words, even if a minister is judged to have broken the Code by any reasonable interpretation, the PM is obliged to take no action whatsoever. If it’s politically expedient to keep that minister in the government, they’ll likely stay in post.
Adding teeth to the Code must surely be considered. At the very least, removing the right of the PM to mark their own colleagues’ homework has to be a priority. The Prime Minister’s Independent Adviser, currently largely impotent, should be given enhanced powers to enforce the Code. Alternatively, a whole new system could be created, potentially on a statutory footing, where political patronage plays no part in deciding the fate of errant ministers. Such reform would surely go a considerable way to restoring the public’s trust in politics, even if it falls short of draining the swamp completely.
The Cabinet Manual
The Cabinet Manual, despite sounding like instructions for assembling flat-packed furniture, is designed to be the fundamental guide to the principal laws, rules and conventions of the conduct and operation of government. Of similar vintage as the Ministerial Code, the Manual went through several drafts and reports before a final version was published in October 2011.
It is now hopelessly out of date, but nobody seems to care. The amendable preamble on the government website still contains references to the Queen and the European Union. It states, clumsily, and more in hope than expectation, ‘The Manual is primarily intended to provide a guide for members of Cabinet, other ministers and civil servants in the carrying out of government business, but will also serve to bring about greater transparency about the mechanisms of government’.
It runs to 110 pages, and reads more like a GCSE British Constitution textbook than a core document laying down the rules for the operation of our entire system of government. It needs a complete overhaul; preferably to be replaced by a whole new set of transparent, meaningful and easily-judged guidelines to help restore public confidence in the political machine.
Parliamentary Procedures
The workings of the House of Commons are still largely impenetrable to all but a select group of political insiders. Despite some attempts at reform in recent years, the House’s ability to fulfil its core role – holding the executive to account and scrutinising legislation – is still seriously hampered.
Parliamentary questions are a case in point. Questions to ministers from government backbenchers are always discussed – that is, vetted – in advance, except in rare cases where an MP is deliberately setting themselves up as a rebel. Even questions from opposition members, however awkward, can easily be batted away with a holding response or dealt with via rhetorical flourishes which sound polished but amount to nothing.
Furthermore, the system for enacting legislation provides little opportunity to seriously challenge the government. Admirable work has often been undertaken at the Committee Stage of bills and by the House of Lords. But with a majority of 174, Labour has little to fear when it comes to the smooth passage of even its most controversial measures. And that is precisely why nothing significant will change, despite the imperative for Parliament to regain its teeth. Some tinkering at the edges is probably the best we can hope for, and the proposed ‘Modernisation Committee of the House of Commons’, announced in the King’s Speech, could at least begin the long process of necessary reform by updating the bizarre sitting hours, anachronistic traditions and outdated language of parliament, to make it more fit for the 21st century.
Opinion Polls During Elections
The 2024 campaign saw more opinion polls conducted and published than in any previous general election. The voracious appetite of media outlets, social and mainstream, coupled with the relative ease of polling in the digital age, produced an avalanche of data purporting to reflect the will of voters. Although the margins varied, the polls universally foresaw a significant Labour victory.
That they were broadly accurate is not in question; the challenge is whether the polls influenced the result rather than merely predicting it. Did non-Labour voters stay at home because there seemed no hope of changing the outcome? Was turnout, at only 60%, supressed because many people thought the result was a foregone conclusion? And were the parties pressured to change their key messages because of the polling? The answer to this last question is undoubtedly ‘yes’ – the Tories desperately pivoted to warn against a ‘Labour super-majority’ in the final week of the campaign, drowning out any discussion of actual policy. Is it healthy that opinion polls can have such an impact?
Such concerns have led many countries to, to varying degrees, ban the publication of polls during election campaigns. Among them are Brazil, Canada, France, Norway, Poland and Greece – the birthplace of democracy. Should the Labour government now consider similar measures?
Election Debates
Richard Nixon, it’s often said, lost the 1960 US presidential race to John F Kennedy because of a television debate. Those listening on radio thought Nixon was the stronger performer, but the large TV audience saw him sweating profusely under the hot lights, and turned against him. The dream of British television executives has always been to wield similar influence over our elections. It wasn’t until 2010 that they got their way, and the resulting leaders’ debate was credited with boosting ‘Cleggmania’ and the rise of the Liberal Democrats, presaging the formation of the Coalition Government.
In 2024, the TV debates seemed to have less impact, maybe because the outcome of the election was already locked in. But the usual criticisms surfaced: TV debates are a triumph of style over substance, they suck the life out of the ‘real’ campaign, and arguments over their format and content overtake proper policy discussion. Some support a ‘Debates Commission’, similar to the USA, which would lay down the rules in advance. But even in the States, this long-established system has now broken down, with CNN by-passing the Commission’s jurisdiction by organising a Biden/Trump debate before either candidate had been formally nominated. Given all these concerns, what is the place of TV debates in our (supposedly) non-presidential system? The government should, at least, consider the risks of the continued ‘X-Factorisation’ of our elections.
Conclusion
Labour have been elected on a simple premise: ‘change’. But the many competing priorities of the new government, coupled with the scarcity of parliamentary time, all conspire to outweigh the advantages of a large majority. The pressing everyday issues, centred on the economy, necessarily take precedence over major constitutional reforms which require long-winded primary legislation. Quick wins must therefore seem attractive, and are not without merit. Whether they are wholly desirable is questionable; the deciding factor for this, and future, governments, will inevitably be whether they are electorally advantageous. Such is politics.
Peter Heaton-Jones.
Peter Heaton-Jones served as an MP for two terms from 2015, standing down in 2019. He was parliamentary private secretary to the lord chancellor and the secretary of state at the Department for Work & Pensions.
The Constitution Society is committed to the promotion of informed debate and is politically impartial. Any views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and not those of The Constitution Society.