How boring are things at the moment? I don’t know, the last couple of weeks have just been so quiet and uneventful. I wish someone would do something. No? No-one buying that? Alright, look, I’m sorry, I was on holiday last week when it all kicked off. I was watching eagerly from the Norfolk coast however, rubbing my hands together with glee as everything happened. I just love the drama! Of the initial eight who made it to the first round of MP voting, only five remain still standing (the latest to fall being the Attorney General Suella Braverman, about an hour ago at the time of writing). In my absence both Rhion and Institute Fellow Jon Bradley have been providing you with updates on the fall of Boris and the future. But now I’m back and you have my full attention. By next week’s Week in Parliament, conveniently the last before the summer recess, we’ll know our final two candidates and we’ll see what we can do with them.

Westminster

What was going on in Parliament this week? Well, we were, for one thing! Myself and Corey, our new MD went down to the House of Lords this week for a discussion with former Institute Associate Baroness Hayman of Ullock about the work she’s doing in the Lords on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, the current state of top-level consultation, and how we can work together to promote public consultation and engagement as a method of improving legislation and policy-making.

As for everything else… well it’s all a bit up in the air isn’t it? We’ve had legislation being pulled, Ministers declining to appear before scrutineering committees, and courtesy of the rules about how caretaker governments are expected to behave it’s unlikely we’re going to be getting anything new.  That’s not to say it’s been silent. On the same day as we were there, an amendment to the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill was brought that discussed the extension of the ‘super-affirmative’ procedure to certain statutory instruments under that bill.

Statutory instruments, sometimes called ‘delegated legislation’, are mechanisms whereby minister may change the law without going through the full parliamentary process of Acts of Parliament. Although this might seem somewhat questionable, they play an absolutely essential role in continuing the function of the state. They don’t receive the same degree of scrutiny by Parliament (though they are ‘laid before’ both Houses), so their use is a little less monitored and examined.

This can cause problems. One of the post-Brexit challenges has been moves by the Government to extensively use SIs to change holdover EU law. Some proposals would even allow ministers to change Acts of Parliament without scrutiny, these are the so-called Henry VIII powers (named after the famous King who used ‘rule by proclamation’ frequently, in between divorces, beheadings and deaths).

We’re currently doing some research work on scrutiny of these, so it was with interest that we noted the proposals. This process would increase the degree of scrutiny on tax or customs related matters by mandating that the Treasury and HMRC must have regard to any representations made by stakeholders, something that usually is not the case unless (and there is a lot of this) there is a specific requirement to consult. As an opposition amendment the procedure is unlikely to be introduced, but it’s interesting to see others proposing solutions to the lack of scrutiny. We’ll pass along our own thoughts when our research project is finished…

Wales

A point of debate this week in Senedd Cymru described elections as “the biggest consultation exercise with the Welsh people”. Those of you who have been with us for a while will know that we tend to object to this characterisation on the grounds that though they share similarity in the sense of both being exercises of a democratic nature, they work in different ways, and have entirely different goals. By our own definition, an election is not a consultation. We define consultation as:

The dynamic process of dialogue between individuals or groups, based upon a genuine exchange of views and, with the objective of influencing decisions, policies or programmes of action

Elections don’t really meet this definition at all, ergo they are not a form of consultation. You might argue that we’re just being nit-picky, but we would make the argument that it’s important not to conflate different exercises. A human has four limbs, a nose and a mouth, but you wouldn’t get a equine doctor to perform open heart surgery on them.

The conflation of different exercises has caused significant problems in recent times. The Brexit referendum (remember that?!) became an all-dominating thing that represented ‘the will of the people’, to the exclusion of almost everything else, including other forms of accountability. This sort of absolutism has proved both socially divisive and damaging to the health of democracy. Whilst the consultation-election axis is perhaps not as severe as this, it is another example of how the confusion between such things can be damaging to public perceptions, and tends to be generally unhelpful.

Nothing from Scotland this week (in recess), or Northern Ireland (in crisis). Last week will be the last sitting week of the Westminster Parliament and the Welsh Senedd goes into recess on Monday. There may or may not be a Week in Parliament next week- Schrödinger’s Week in Parliament if you like.