The coalition’s constitutional reform programme has been “inconsistent” and rushed because of political considerations, an influential committee of Lords have found.
The select committee on the constitution criticised the “lack of coherence” in the government’s programme, citing legislation to reduce the number of MPs and change constituency boundaries and the number of MPs as an example of a law rushed through without sustained public demand or scrutiny, for political purposes.
“The desire to act quickly as a new government is no justification for bypassing a proper constitutional process”, they said.
Senior Conservative backbench MP Bernard Jenkin and Lib Dem peer Lord Rodgers both criticised the Government for moving too quickly in the wake of the report.
Lord Rodgers told The Huffington Post: ‘There has been a lot of changes, and more changes will occur. This week we have the final stages of the Fixed Term Parliament Bill. There was inadequate discussion over why [the length of Parliaments] ended up as being five years. There should be not a lengthy discussion, but there should be a thorough examination, with much public discussion. Of course we had no such thing.”
“In the case of Blair and the Supreme Court, that was terribly badly handled, just sacking the Lord Chancellor. Trouble is, a new government comes in, and in the case of the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick [Clegg] was very keen to move forward very quickly, and it’s very difficult getting that thorough process if ministers want to get things done quickly. Whilst legislation is often rushed, constitutional matters are a very special case.”
And senior backbencher Bernard Jenkin told the Huffington Post that the fixed term parliaments was a "classic" constitutional misadventure.
"The recent history of constitutional legislation is littered with the unintended consequences which people warned about - and political biographies are strewn with regrets about forcing these things through. The Freedom of Information Act is exposing much that ministers intended to keep private.
"The Human Rights Act is adding to the paralysis of public administration. Devolution was meant to "kill Scottish Nationalism stone dead" and has not. The list goes on. The Maastricht Treaty is bleeding the nations finances, even though we had an opt-out form the Euro. The Fixed Term Parliaments Bill will go down as a classic of the genre. And so-called Lords Reform will never go through, precisely because we have had 100 years to think about it."
The committee, comprised of political heavyweights such as former Labour attorney general Lord Goldsmith, former Conservative Cabinet Minister Lord Crickhowell and Conservative Minister Lord Renton criticised inconsistency in reforms made by both the coalition government and the previous Labour government.
They condemned inconsistency which derived from “political considerations” over the last decade.
“There has been an inconsistent approach to the process of constitutional change. Whilst particular processes may be employed in relation to some proposals, they have been entirely absent in relation to others.”
The Lords said the Coalition was not learning from the mistakes of the Labour government, who they criticised for proposing significant changes to the UK’s constitution as a “knee-jerk reaction to particular circumstances.”
“There has been an inconsistent approach to the process of constitutional change. Whilst particular processes may be employed in relation to some proposals, they have been entirely absent in relation to others”, the report found.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said “The Government has seen the Committee’s Report and will study it with interest.”