What are the current Governments key areas of constitutional reform

The current conservative government are not as keen as a third party would be for constitutional reform, because constitutional reform limits the powers of government. As the conservative government are a leading party, and have been in power, coalition or by themselves since 2010, they understand that constitutional reform would limit their power massively. The House of Lords Reform Act 1999 limited the conservative government because the majority of hereditary peers were conservatives. 


In the current manifesto as it lies does not have many constitutional reforms, a Conservative win takes large-scale House of Lords reform off the political agenda. The party’s manifesto explicitly stated that ‘this is not a priority in the next Parliament’ (page 49). This reinforces how the current government are reluctant to introducing constitutional reform that they are aware will limit themselves further in the future.

However in the conservative manifesto, similar to those of the other UK wide parties committed to implementing recommendations to devolve further powers to Scotland. Although this would reduce the governments powers over Scotland, they would still have some and it would be less pressure on Parliament if powers were further devolved. However these proposals were strongly criticised by two parliamentary committees – in both Commons and Lords. The SNP will press for more, in pursuit of full fiscal autonomy; while devo-sceptic Conservative backbenchers may argue for less. The sensible thing may be to introduce proposals via a draft bill, to see whether middle ground can be found.

Furthermore a massive constitutional change that would increase the powers of government is the EU referendum, although Cameron may not be so keen, his narrow majority means that his Eurosceptic backbenchers are in a strong position to hold him to his promise. Therefore leading to a EU ‘in or out’ referendum to take place later this year.

In conclusion, the current Governments key area of constitutional reform is very little to previous years, in 1997 under Labour and in 2010 under the Coalition government, however constitutional reforms are still a feature of their manifesto.