Category: UK Parliament
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David Erdos: Lost in Inaction? The Statutory Reports on Media Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
Editors’ note: This post was originally published on 12 February 2025 Section 179 of the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 places the Secretary of State under a duty to ensure that a Report is “la[id] before Parliament” on both the “use” and “effectiveness” of “relevant alternative dispute resolution procedures” in cases involving actual or alleged failures by media organisations, other than broadcasters, “to comply with…
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Max Taylor: A Role for Parliament in Independent Judicial Appointments: A Comparison with the Comptroller and Auditor General
The Starmer ministry plans to ‘…deepen our democracy by reforming Parliament…’, but missing from its proposals is any reconsideration of whether Parliament should adopt a role in judicial appointments somewhat analogous to that of the US Senate in federal judicial appointments (US Constitution, Art II, s 2). Debate about such a proposal has recurred from…
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Ben Yong: What—and Who—is Parliament?
The Palace of Westminster is a symbol of British democracy, and it is falling apart. It is a serious danger to those who work within it: a recent news report suggested the Palace could be the next ‘Notre Dame inferno’. For years parliamentarians have repeatedly argued over what to do about this grim state of…
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Nicholas Reed Langen: The Use and Abuse of Citizenship Deprivation: SSHD v Kolicaj
Any British citizen that happens to hold citizenship for another country could find themselves in an invidious position. If the Home Secretary decides that it would be ‘conducive to the public good’, they can single-handedly strip a person of their citizenship, and with it, their right to remain in the country. So long as the deprivation…
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Alyssa Nathanson-Tanner: The Irresistible Temptations of Patronage: Prime Ministerial Appointment of Crossbenchers
Among the many questions raised by the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury in November 2024, the peerage which has customarily been awarded by the Prime Minister hangs in the balance. The Prime Minister enjoys an unlimited discretion to appoint new peers, and since the Life Peerages Act 1958 has granted a life peerage on…
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Stephen Tierney: Towards a Principle of Positive Engagement?: The House of Lords Constitution Committee reports on The Governance of the Union
Over the past decade the House of Lords Constitution Committee has immersed itself in the principles, purposes and operation of devolution. Last week marked 10 years since the referendum on Scottish independence, and in that time the Committee has published multiple reports on the changing face of the territorial constitution, offering encouragement, detailed critique and…
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Sanjit Nagi: “A Mandate for Change!”: Popular Sovereignty and the Labour Party
The recent general election saw the Labour Party being elected with a majority of 171 seats in Parliament. The following morning, in his first speech as Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer claimed the nation had given the Labour Party a “clear mandate”. Similarly, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, stated the British people…
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Paul F Scott: Spying on Parliamentarians
The Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill was introduced into Parliament before Christmas, starting in the House of Lords, to which it will shortly return for consideration of Commons amendments. Generally, the progress of the Bill, much of which implements recommendations made by Lord Anderson of Ipswich in his review of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 of June 2023,…
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Jeff King: The House of Lords, Constitutional Propriety, and the Safety of Rwanda Bill
The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill will receive its second reading in the House of Lords on 29 January 2024, having cleared the House of Commons unamended. There are a great many problems with the Rwanda Bill, any of which might weigh with the Lords, but this blog post focuses on just one:…
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Adam Tucker: The Rwanda Policy, Legal Fiction(s), and Parliament’s Legislative Authority
Last week the Supreme Court (in R (AAA) v Home Secretary) found the UK government’s policy to send asylum applicants to Rwanda unlawful on the grounds that “removal … to Rwanda would expose them to a real risk of ill-treatment by reason of refoulement” [149]. In response, the Prime Minister announced that the government intends…