More haste less speed...

The House of Commons’ Justice Committee report published yesterday was critical about the Government’s “ad hoc and piecemeal” attempts at constitutional reform; from the chairman of the Committee, Sir Alan Beith:

"While we welcome the Government's interest in constitutional reform and renewal, and its desire to restore public trust in Parliament and the political process, we cannot have rushed and piecemeal changes which will affect the way our country is governed for generations to come, and we need a process in which the public is genuinely involved."

A whole range of matters were touched on, including:

- The Parliamentary Standards Bill, (""while a laudable attempt at restoring confidence, it "should serve as a warning about the dangers of undertaking reform too quickly, and without adequate consultation to enable a full and thorough investigation of the constitutional implications"").

- The possibility of a written constitution, ("involves fundamental issues about the sovereignty of Parliament, the nature of the monarchy, the role of the judiciary and the rights of the citizen").

- The constitutional reform detailed in Building Britain’s Future ("a more systematic and established process is required").

- The Committee’s own recent report on Devolution (describing ""the governance of England as "the unfinished business of devolution", remaining highly centralised, with no consensus on solutions to the "English Question"").

- The powers and structures of local government (should they "be safeguarded in a written constitution"?).

- The increasing of "the trend" toward an appointed second chamber, ("contrary to the view expressed by the three main parties and the House of Commons").

- Reform of the House of Commons (looking at "the near total control of the Order Paper"; "the dual role of the Leader of the House as the main channel for all House business and as a member of the executive" and "the fact that the House itself has no mechanism for introducing effective motions relating to business and timing other than through the Leader of the House").

As indicated in Beith’s quotation at the beginning, the Committee sees great danger in the rushing through of both constitutional and procedural legislation without proper thought and consultation. They put it down to a "desire to restore public trust" in the institutions of governance, but there is a very thin line between that and the pandering to a populism, knee-jerked into action by the various media. The Brown Administration, in its dying throes, is running around like a headless chicken trying to second-guess and act on tomorrow’s Daily Mail headline- this report, hopefully, will remind them (and the other parties) that their responsibilities towards the good governance of the United Kingdom run way beyond narrow party interests.