hi my name's Ollie and this politics explained video I'm going to go through everything you need to know about changes to the Constitution since 1997 and debates about further reform in a level politics so that's not just all the knowledge you need to know with key specific examples also some key points of analysis that you can use in your essays and some really important um and likely questions you can get as asked in your exam so you can be fully prepared for your exam so in this video I'm going to start by going through the parts of the specification this video covers and the potential essay questions and key debates you get asked by in the exam from there I'm going to look at new labels constitutional reforms so looking at House of Lords reform looking at the Human Rights Act the evolution electoral reform from there I'm going to go on to the coalitions Constitutional reforms and reforms undertaken since 2015. well we're finally looking at debates over further reform specifically the codification and entrenchment of the Constitution the PDF you should be seeing up there you can access in the first link in the description to the positive displaying website where you can also find lots of resources to help you in your positive a level including essay plans everything you need to know guides as well as a place to sign up for tutoring if that's something um so yeah without further Ado let's get into it so starting off with the parts of the specification this video covers so I've already got a video on the positive Spain YouTube channel on demolition um including debates about further reform to the evolution in England and to existing bodies and I've got already got a video on the first part of the Constitution topic so this video covers everything else so it looks at how the contribution has changed since 1997 um so under labor under the Coalition and any major reforms undertaken since and it looks a kind of key part of the debate about further reform topic so it looks at the extent to which the individual reform since 1997 should be taken further and it looks at whether the UK Constitution should be changed to be entrenched and codified including a bit of rights that part where the Devolution should be extended in England is in the Devolution video on the positive thing which you can so have a look at that um if you're looking for kind of so yeah in terms of the kind of potential essay questions and key debates the key debates are whether the UK Constitution should be codified and interacting to look at that near the end of the video the impact and significance of constitutional reform since 1997 whether the UK Constitution requires further change and if you make detailed essay plans all the questions involved below we should be well prepared for the exam these will soon be available at least some of them will still be available on the Quality Systems website so in terms of these questions first got evaluate the view of the UK Constitution should be codified in the trend quite a simple question then you've got to evaluate the view that the UK Constitution is fit for purpose that's especially looking at okay where is the Constitution today and how successful have those reform assist 1997 been then you've got to evaluate the views of the Constitutional reform since 1997 improved the British political system um and also potentially at the end you can also kind of ask answer a question on evaluate the view of the Constitutional reforms introduced since 2010 a fundamentally change um or something like that so starting off with new latest constitutional forms um and an introduction to them so why did new labor adopt the policy of constitutional reform so it become a prominent issue in new head politics in the late 20th century due to the growing popularity of the lib Dems and labor leader John Smith here in proceeded Tony Baron so he'd be really quite passionate about constitutional reform the growth and support for National movements in Scotland and Wales also created pressure for the evolution um whilst new labor had promised not to increase income tax or massively increase public spending therefore introducing kind of significant constitutional reform enabled them to appear as a part of radical change and offer a vision of Hope pretty much whilst not spending much money um and ultimately me later sort of present itself as a modern democratic and new party um I especially in comparison to the conservative party in government which at campus City scandals and constitutional reform really modernizing the country was a key way to do that and as a result there were four key principles of new Labor's constitutional reform program the first was democratization so supposed to reform on Democratic features of the UK Constitution the second was decentralization so dispersing power from central government to devolve bodies and local government the service restoration of rights which was supposed to bring Britain in line with the rest of Europe and better protect the rights of citizens and then the fourth was modernization so reforming the housing on the laws to improve the effectiveness of Parliament and modernizing the whole system in general so we're now going to go through the um each reform intern looking at kind of okay what was it what was its impact how much success did it have and argument as well whether it should be taken so the first in my opinion in an essay really to include this one um this is House of multiple so what reforms are introduced the new labor sought to reform the House of Lords because the majority of peers in the house of laws were hereditary gays who were there because they came from aristocratic families not because they were elected or they're on Merrick the house of laws is unelected and therefore seen as undemocratic and the House of Lords had a strong concern to the majority of due to tyrannical page in surrender nature which of course not only can be seen as kind of quite anti-democratic and unfair but also obviously didn't help later um so new labor had a plan to reform the house of laws it was a two-stage plan um and they adopted a two-stage plan as it was recognizing there was agreement on the key weaknesses of the Lords but disagreement over what should replace it so they wanted to kind of tackle the key weaknesses first I mean that was in stage one which would be removing all her energy there's a lot of agreement that should be done then stage two however would be to replace the House of Lords with their new second chamber so they were going to take it in two stages and in practice stage almost carried out almost almost flawlessly in the 1999 House of Lords act and it removed the vast majority of her kids reducing them from 777 to just 92 and 9200ps remained as a compromise with the laws so that the bill would pass quickly so largely successful in passing that stage one of the reform and from 2000 the House of Lords appointment commission began to nominate life pits who were experts in their fields and not necessarily linked to a party so many of them became cross benches and the Prime Minister and other party leaders continue to be able to knock and it is um so that shows how kind of these life peers largely replaced those heretricals stage two I'm kind of replacing it with a new elected second chamber was meant to follow this but never did as many labor and fees labor MPS felt the problems of her entry peers and who said the dominance have already been dealt with uh whilst there's a lack of agreement on what the new chamber should look like so in terms of the arguments that the reforms are positive and significant you've got them they undermine the hereditary bases the House of Lords and we were just inbuilt conservative majority whilst new um New Life peers made the house of laws more professional and significant um which has also allowed them to become more assertive um and more better able to effectively constrain executive power on the other hand the arguments these reforms are limited is that the puzzle order form hasn't yet gone the full way with failed attempts at stage two in 2003 2007 and 2012 um under the Coalition and the House of Lords is therefore still undemocratic which can be still be seen as quite a problem prime minister is still able to make appointments and House of Lords which is seen as problematic and look at the Parlor in the videos on the parliament topic on the positive displaying YouTube channel for a bit more detail um on the kind of problems with the appointments process so now I'm going to look at the debate over further reform to the housing boards so Arguments for the house of laws being replaced with an elected second chamber is that the house of law just fundamentally are democratic and the second chamber should be based on popular consent being elected would embold in the second chamber and result in more effective scrutiny of government legislation as the house of Lord's current unelected nature limits its ability to scrutinize legislation whilst many members of the House of Lords also fail to turn up regularly or play an active professional role if a new change was elected through proportional representation it likely wouldn't have a majority and would therefore be able to effectively challenge the dominance in the House of Commons and change the current system from being an elected dictation if elected through proportional representation as well a new um second chamber would be much more representative of the electorate especially in comparison to the um House of Lords which is very unrepresented in terms of demographics and the House of Commons which is unrepresented due to the first or something exploding system so that's margin is that it really should be further reformed to become Democratic on the other hand some arguments that um it shouldn't be replaced with an elected second chamber and that's if the second chamber was elected it would be able to claim Democratic legitimacy and be a lot more assertive this would risk causing significant gridlock in Parliament and prevent important legislation from being passed um and this would be especially likely if it was elected a different time to the House of Commons um as and if it was elected using proportional representation um because then it'd be a lot more likely that each kind of change will be a majority of a different party the current appointed nature of the House of Lords can be seen as an advantage of life as life space have a lot of expertise in different areas and can therefore provide effective scrutiny and current problems with the with appointments by X Prime Ministers could also be fixed without resorting to um an elected second chain and if you argued that the current balance of the chambers continues working with the House of Lords being a less powerful revising or amending chamber that is able to hold the government to account on key issues using its delaying power when it needs to and finally it can be argued that an elected second chamber will be a lot more likely to be concerned with Party politics than anything else so it wouldn't be defined by regions um or kind of seek to represent local constituencies as for the House of Commons it will be defined by Pokey politics um and that's kind of that can be seen in Australia in America um finally going to look at um Kia Stars proposed reforms to the House of Lords so case numbers recently came out in 722 and then announced plans to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a new democratically elected second chamber um though full plans will be outlined in Labor's next Manifesto they'll include removing politicians power to make appointments to the Lords and replacing with an elected chamber that represents the UK's Nations and regions to save down the reforms seek to ensure that the chamber would remain a second chamber um the amended and scrutinized legislation rather than replacing the key functions of the house requirements and kind of link to this is the fact that he's criticized retentory governments for undermining trust in politics for handling peerages to what he called lackeys and donors um such as Boris Johnson's friend and meeting standard owner um everything in led by Dev and billion outcome conservative party donor thing so that's everything in terms of the House of Lords could be a whole essay in itself um or could be just one paragraph an essay but the market is definitely a really important part for them to learn well the next key reform introduced by new labor was the Human Rights Act so as I kind of say here for more a little bit more detail on this look at the rights and context video on the positive Spain YouTube channel um and the accompanying everything we need to know um PDF guide on the positive display website um because there's a little bit more detail right because that's kind of specifically those on rights but still going to cover it in significantly done it so what reforms are introduced so the Human Rights Act 1998 in trying the European conventional human rights leading UK law um in effect from 2000 meaning the right to be defended in UK courts rather than having to go to Strasbourg so effectively copy and paste it that meant that those rights could now be defended in the Supreme Court you get high court if like different courts as well um and the rights protected by the ACT included the right to life right to a fair trial right to privacy and family life and prohibition of torture among many others in terms of arguments that these reforms were positive and significant it's the sense the Human Rights Act is claiming the UK the UK has developed a right-based culture as all legislation must be compliant with the act or is supposed to be a good example I've always kind of advised to be compliant with the act and judges can declare early acts upon incompatible with it though they can't legally compel pollen to make changes due to the concept of sovereignty however Parliament usually does ACT to address any issues raised by the courts um and has a joint committee on human rights and scrutinize bills and ensure they're compatible with the Human Rights Act therefore describe demonstrating the persuasive influence of the HRA for example in aus's Secretary of State for the home Department part of the anti-terrorism climate Security Act of 2001. um this part of it was declared incompatible with articles 5 and 14 of the Human Rights Act by committing the Detention of suspected International terrorists in a way that discriminated on the grounds of nationality or immigration status as a consequence the prevention of terrorism after 2005 was amended the Human Rights Act can never be seen as limiting parliamentary sovereignty and furthering the rule of law on the other hand um the human rights that it's been criticized for giving unelected judges too much power and it's also been criticized for being too weak so it may be used to check other laws but it's not entrenched and could still be repealed by a simple Act of parliament whilst also not being legally binding or public so judges can offer Declarations of incompatibility but that doesn't mean they'll be listening um the illegal migration bill for example was introduced by home secretaries to other braveman on the 7th of March 2000 2023 with a section 19 note stating that there was a likelihood on the provisions of the bill would be incompatible with human rights act and they got more aware of that um but that the government wanted to proceed with it nonetheless um so that show was kind of okay maybe actually the persuasive influence of the Human Rights Act isn't kind of that big maybe it's become quite Limited many Critics on the right also say that the Human Rights Act stopped terrorist suspects from being deported and that the Human Rights Act therefore favored undeserving individuals rather than protecting the legitimate freedoms of UK citizens and protecting society as a whole for a bit more on that go to the rights and context video on the politics explain which you can so in terms of potential further reforms the first one is a British Bill of Rights so at various points a conservative party has backed pulling out of the European conventional and human rights and replacing the human rights act with the British Bill of Rights which has been criticized by hundreds of human rights groups for seeking to remove rights in the UK the proposed bill of right to make it easier to support foreign criminals by elevating Public Safety over the right to a family life and also increase freedom of the press by elevating the right to freedom of expression over the right to privacy Justice secretary or now former Justice secretary actually because he was recently um sacked for breaking individual ministerial responsibility um Dominic Robb argues that the Human Rights Act has led to a lot of unjustifiably successful human rights claims in court especially in relation to the deportation of foil foods and immigrants so that's one of the potential reforms is the British bill of righteous in reality would actually remove the rights the British Bill of Rights also met the UK Supreme Court the final court of appeal rather than the European Court of human rights as a lot of conservatives are opposed to the echr um and it would also weaken the protection of rights in the UK um as the British Bill of Rights will be a simple Act of parliament was the European convention on human rights is an international treat yeah that's everything in terms of the human rights as I said go to that writing context video um for a bit more detail if you want a bit more detail or not the next thing is a leftover form with this one as well go to the Electoral systems video on the channel for a bit more detail we're going to go kind of look at it now in a bit less detail but from the kind of view of elliptical reform and constitutional form so what reformers are introduced the introduction that devolved assemblies um also led to the introduction of various proportional representation systems in Scotland Wales London and Northern Pike the additional member system was introduced for the world Assembly in Scottish Parliament the single transferable vote system was introduced for the northern Irish assembly and the supplementary vote system though it's now been removed and replaced with first part of post it was introduced for London mayoral elections in 1999 new labor also introduced the version of the party list system with multi-member constituencies for elections to the European company obviously now that we've left the EU that's no longer no longer takes place in the UK so in what ways were these reforms positive and significant um where these more proportional systems were introduced they resulted in more proportional electoral results other representation of smaller parties in time in particular and new Labor's electoral reform therefore improved to oxy in the UK the Electoral Reform Commission is a recognition that first class post is a floor system on the other hand um in what ways relief reforms are limited is that though Blair had briefly considered it before the 1997 election the first passport's electoral system for UK timer electrons wasn't changed um democracy therefore continues to be limited from the most important UK election this was in large part because labor had great success on the first passer Post in 1997 2001 and 2005 and they were resistant to changing a system that would granted them significant majorities in terms of potential further reforms again look at the um electoral systems video for more detail on this um but the arguments for a more proportional system um being introduced to the UK Parliament elections is the wolf books and systems have been shown to be effective in Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland um especially in Scotland Wells where minority and Coalition governments have been very stable a more proportional laptop system would improve mocks in the UK by improving voter choice and being far more proportional and representative particularly by improving the representation of minor parties and limiting the dominance of the two million parties on the other hand um arguments against the proportional system being introduced for UK Parliament elections and that are more proportional electoral system was rejected in the 2011 referendum in the AV referendum the MP constituency link is strong under first passer post and first part suppose also produces strong majority governments excludes extremist parties as is easy to use and delivers quick results so effectively for each of these bullet points I've got a whole paragraph in the Electoral systems video um so look at that one policy in these essays actually is likely to only be a paragraph so you need to kind of work out how to like the whole topic is like this would only be a paragraph so you work out it's kind of really shorten it down as well Funny How likely is further electoral reform so further electoral reform particularly replacing the first part of social electoral system um is very unlikely the conservative party strongly supports first pass space whilst the labor party supports first pass the post also um and would be very unlikely to replace it if it got into government for the first time in 14 years as it potentially looks quite likely to do so so that's everything in terms of electoral reform what I'm going to go on to now is devotion again with this there's a video a whole video on Devolution YouTube channel so I'm going to look at this in a little bit more detail a bit less detail sorry but from the kind of view of constitutionalism so what reform to introduced um following referendums in 1997 to 98 Divine bodies were introduced in Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland and the greater London Authority was also introduced in 1999. so Scotland was given the most powers out of all the devolved body due to Scotland's strong nationalist movement including control over most public services with the powers reserved for Westminster being listed including defense macroeconomic policy foreign policy constitutional matters Etc with the left the rest being um result of Scotland Scotland has since gained even more Powers including significant fiscal and constitutionalized with Wales well started with far fewer houses as there was very little National sentiment in Wales and the 1997 referendum and wealth Devolution was very close with a majority of just 50.5 percent on a 50 turn at first therefore Wales only had the Welsh assembly that had no legislative powers or first Minister and were kind of only granted administrative Evolution but over the years Wells has gained more powers in response to Growing nationalism and public support for the evolution and it now has key primary legislative powers that have seen as having service Devolution and sovereign another Northern Ireland um division was originally introduced in 1998 as part of a broader peace agreement between Catholics and Protestants nationalism following the 1998 Good Friday agreement power sharing is key to the lord of the line assembly the executive must be led by a first Minister and Deputy first Minister and several key decisions including the budget and program for government require cross-community support between nationalism in 1998 Northern Ireland was like Scotland given primary legislative control over areas not reserved for Westminster um and it kind of was given similar powers to Scotland the first and apart from Corporation Captain policing and Justice being devolved the northern Irish assembly has gained a few Powers since and still lacks major tax rates in terms of the greatest London Authority um it was introduced and controlled by a directly elected mayor and elected London assembly so the mayor was first Ken Livingston um why are you missing someone in the middle but then I think Boris Johnson and has since been City card um and the grace and London Authority has strategic responsibility over and power over policings to transport on an economic development in terms of arguments that these reforms were positive and significant it's established an improved democracy in the UK by creating governments closer to the people I'm division reducer sovereignty of the UK Parliament by giving significant power to other legislative bodies and Devolution to Northern Ireland helped restore peace following the troubles is helping to keep the UK together in terms of arguments the initial forms are limited it's the our first Wales were given limited legislative powers devotion is also ideally increased tensions between different parts of the UK and failed to stop stop growing independence movement in Scotland has got them merely going independent in 2014 and now it looks like it does have pretty much a majority um support for Independence within the country Evolution was also asymmetric with there being no English Parliament or substantial representation of England therefore creating a democratic deficit as I said for a lot more detail on that look at the Devolution video on the YouTube channel in terms of potential further reforms for Scotland there are a few further powers that can be devolved to the Scottish following as it already holds a great amount of power there are some though and Devo Max could be introduced to prevent growing calls for Independence many polls suggest that um if there was an indie ref 2 now then the Scottish public would vote for Independence the more powers that are devolved to Scotland though the more pertinent the Western question for God again look at the demolition this is Wales Welsh Independence is growing in popularity with some polls over 30 support and this may lead to even more deeply into Wales with coarse oils have the same powers that Scotland now has is made um also been influenced by the covert period in which Derek Wales demonstrates that it could diverge from England on issues often successfully in terms of Northern Ireland further evolution is unlikely as unionists are very opposed um but a referendum or reunification with the Republic island is possible especially as it's estimated that Catholics now outnumber Protestants in your life and finally the key point for kind of further Devolution is for England and in the Devolution video This goes into a lot more detail in relation to this but further Devolution could be introduced in England to change the asymmetric nature of the evolution solve the West low the impression and increase the representation of England and give an outlet to English nationally there are two key possible reforms which I look at in that video an English Parliament can be introduced on more Regional debris and for example city regions of regional assemblies could be introduced yeah that's everything in terms of the Evolution for this video what I'm going to look at now is the Supreme Court and again with this one I keep doing all of that there's a whole video on the positive thing you should travel on the Supreme Court so look at it look at that for a lot more detail so what reforms were introduced so Blair's government introduces Supreme Court with the Constitutional format to 2005. the creation of the Court was designed to end the fusion of powers at the highest level of the UK Judiciary and modernize by moving towards a separation of powers that would increase the highest courts judicial Independence and make it clearly separate from Parliament previously the most senior judges have started members of the House of Lords and were known as the law Lords and the conscious reform of fatally hit them up put them in a different location so it really took them out of Parliament and obviously most of those have the time now that it's new members as well the Constitutional Reform Act also reduce the powers of the Lord Chancellor so prior to the Constitutional Warfare like the Lord Chancellor had three roles one was executive role one was a legislative role a model was a Judicial with a key kind of two key two details being that they were a cabinet minister and they elected the key members of like the highest judges in the country which can be seen as really not very good for the separation of powers is not very good for democracy um so it's really criticized for lacking Independence and as a result the Constitutional Reform Act removed the legislative and judicial roles of the Lord chancellor who is now just a government concern so in terms of arguments or ways in which these reforms are positive and significant is that the introduction Supreme Court brought the UK in line with most of Europe by clearly separating the legislative and the judicial branches this increased the independence of the country's highest court and made it more effective in holding the government apart to account he can therefore be seen as improving the war of law the downgrading of the role of the Lord Chancellor also increased judicial Independence and neutrality on the other hand ways in which these reforms are limited that the Supreme Court still would lack the power to strike down laws passed by parliament what's a supreme court could in theory and legally could be abolished with a simple Act of parliament um so what could simply be abolished by Parliament um and parliamentary sovereignty is therefore still intact in terms of potential further reforms um it's a note of supreme court has become increasingly politicizingly especially in relation to key brexit cases so not necessarily as plit sizes if it's not politically neutral anymore but it's taken a lot more much more kind of prominent role in UK politics and become a lot more in the media you see so even though that's happened it seems unlikely there will be any reforms to the court in the near future um if a codified an entrance Constitution will introduce in the future then the Supreme Court could gain the power to strike down The rules so that's the Supreme Court final thing I'm going to look at is other some other minor competitional changes introduced by new labor I'm just so you know about them potentially they come from the source question or something like that the first is the Freedom of Information Act and we'll just introduce to make it easier for operation opposition MPS journalists voters and others to request information from the government members of the public also gain the right to access any information held about them by public bodies um as a consequence it can be seen as improving the rights of citizens the Freedom of Information Act has been praised for making the government more transparent and enabling journalists to seek out sensitive information and hold the government to account expensive Scandal for example was discovered through Freedom of Information requests by journalists on the other hand the Freedom of Information Act can be seen as too weak as the government can turn down some requests that they judge that they would negatively affect the workings in the current government further it has been criticized for making it more difficult for politicians to discuss controversial matters through former channels which needs to then be discussed informally especially over what's up at the moment or not at all and Tony Blair has since actually regrets passing the freedom information act for this reason then finally our new labor also made some minor reforms to the House of Commons though there was little attempt to reform the House of Commons and strength and its ability to hold the government to account new labor did introduce some minor changes to the House of Commons so efforts were made to make the House of Commons more family friendly um including by greatly reducing the number of late night settings and since 2002 new labor also mandated the prime minister to be questioned by the House of Commons liaison select committee twice a year okay so that was everything in terms of new Labor's constitutional reforms what I'm going to go into now is constitutional reforms since 2010 so new labor responsibility reforms were pretty significant the one since 2010 um probably barring brexit in my opinion can be seen as not as significant so starting off with an introduction to the coalition's Constitutional forms the conservative party um had traditionally opposed reform to the Constitution as it refers to that change happen gradually and in response to circumstances rather than through design they support the uncodified Constitution which is allowed change to happen naturally and fear that any major changes to the Constitution and disrupt the functioning of the political systems that was the first part of the Coalition right the major partners they were kind of together though with the live damage who really like the for decades their key policy of being constitutional before um so radical Constitution reform had always been one of the key policies of the liberal Democrats and they supported improving the functioning and democracy of the political system by changing the voting system to make it more proportional moving on Democratic elements like the house of Lawns and constraining the power of the executive the implementation of proposals for constitutional reform one of the Key conditions for the liberal Democrats joining the Coalition with the conservatives and after the 2010 expenses Scandal there was a heightened anti-politics moved in the country and as a consequence Clegg as a kind of Outsider tried to pack his his reform as a great modernization of the political system and he argued that incremental change will not do it's time for a wholesale big banger approach the Constitution so what I'm going to look at first is an overview of the Constitutional reform under the Coalition so which Constitutional reforms are passed the first is the fixed terms Parliament fixed term Parliament Acts the second um was that the Coalition implemented the recommendation to the right committee which gave more powers to power to back benches for a bit more detail on that look at the parliament videos on the politics explained YouTube channel the conservative um about 2011 EU act in trying into law the principle that any new treaties transferring how to the EU should be subject to a referendum obviously that obviously was never used on and now he's completely irrelevant because we've left the EU the Coalition introduced legislation that alterating the law altering the line of succession to the crown so that gender no longer played any role and in 2012 10 cities held referendums on whether to have a mayor whilst the Coalition also accepted the evolution and Independence referendums in Wales and Scotland um perspectively so those are the Constitutional reforms that were passed not many of them to be honest that's significant there are a lot of constitutional folks that were blocked or abandoned by the Constitution by the Coalition sorry one of the libdam's Key conditions for joining the Coalition was the holding of the alternative vote referendum in 2011. Cameron managed to get the legislation for it passed but the conservatives led a successful campaign against a b which is a more proportional system and it was conclusively rejected by the Electoral this ended the honeymoon period between the two parties and effectively ended um the prospects of further elect to reform for a decade or so before at least the Coalition introduced a bill to replace the House of Lords with an 80 elected Senate so doing that on a stage two or fourth we talked about earlier um with 300 to 400 members in 15-year terms but this was blocked in 2012 when Tory man Tory Rebels sides with labor the Consultants are also sought to introduce legislation reducing the number of MPS from 650 to 600 and equalizing the size of constituencies but the lib does withdrew their support in large part because the boundary changes would have benefited benefited the Tories and the whole world finally the Coalition settled commissions on reform the HRA and dealing with the West lothians question but neither process resulted in change at the two parties discipline so starting off with the fixed compartments I'm going to look at a couple of them in a bit more detail once they were passed so the fixed compartment act removes the prerogative power of the Prime Minister to call the snap election when it suited them by requiring two-thirds of parliament to support a snap election before it was cool it was designed to reassure the lib dams that Cameron wouldn't call a snap election when it's suited to the conservative party and therefore distract him from the government effectively it performed its role during the coalition government which lasted the whole five years after the Coalition however the legislation was largely ineffective as shown in the 27 and 2019 elections when the government were able to shame the opposition into voting for an election which way that they were unlikely to block as it would make them seem very amazing very weak and I'd give up an opportunity to empower the fixed on Parliament act has now been repealed and is repealed by Boris Johnson's government in 2012. and then the other key on the phone was introduced was further division to Wales the following year of 2011 referendum in which for 64 voted in favor Wells gained primary legislative control over devolved areas similar to what Scotland was originally given this therefore brought whales in line with the wealth um with a Scottish enrolled virus to both points following the referendum the coalition government set of the silk commission to consider even further deviation to Wales leading to the 2014 governor Wales act which renamed the wells executive the Welsh government and also gave the control over landfill tax and stamp Duty alongside the substantial control he had already had over health education transport Etc so during the Coalition the Welsh assembly the world of parliament gained a lot more power out before it's not set in terms of reforms um under the Coalition what I'm going to look at now is reforms undertaken since 2015. the first one of these is further Devotion to Scotland so in the run-up two and since the 2014 Scottish independence referendum Scotland has gained more powers in order to try and satisfy calls for more autonomy and disincentivizing dependence this was in particular in the Scotland Act of 2016 which gave the Scottish Parliament further Powers particularly in the area of Tax rating so fiscal Devolution Scotland gained control over 50 of vat the power to set all bands and rates of income tax which is actually used recently to raise the top and a high rate of income tax key welfare benefits and control over the franchise which they used to reduce the voting age to 16. this community in this fiscal devotion and brought Scotland closer to Devo Max whilst further reducing the sovereignty of the UK Parliament and increasing the strength of the West loading question the next um thing introduced since 2015 was brexit and this is in my opinion the most significant constitutional change for um for decades perhaps um and yeah as I said perhaps the most significant changes bracelet following the EU referendum in 2016 Britain finally left the European Union leading Department were gaining substantial sovereignty at CNT got a whole video on kind of the EU and Britain leaving the EU on the politics of their YouTube channel so look into that and the final um three are English both English laws they were called about these act and recently recently that's used in a section 35. so power so in terms of English words to English laws how being devolved to Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland and raise the West Lothian which question why Scottish or like Welsh as well and more large as well and he should be able to vote on English matters in the UK Parliament that don't affect their constituents such as Healthcare in England um well when English MPS can't do the same in the social Department in order to seek to tackle this evil was introduced by the conservative government in 2015. this allowed English MPS to veto any legislation affecting only England from being passed it didn't however allow English MPS to make their own rules it wasn't used often um around so it's used for around a third of bills in the 2015 to 2017 Parliament um but it may have become more significant if a government was elected with the majority of um in the UK but not in England and it was criticized for creating two tiers of MPS and an unnecessary complications and not providing a viable expression for English identity and was scrapped by Boris Johnson's government in July 2012. the final thing introduced by Cameron's government was the recall of MPS Act of 2015 which was introduced in response to the fact that voters had no legal means between elections and removing scandalous MPS who refused to resign their seats it meant that if an MPA is sentenced to a custodial sentence or is suspended from the commons for more than 21 days a by-election is triggered um if at least 10 percent could considering sign re-equal petition in October 2019 for example there was a breconshire by-election after Christopher Davies provided misleading expenses claims and he was replaced in the election this is an example of direct democracy which increases sovereignty of the people and then finally this is very recently is British United use of a section 35 so in 2023 Rishi tsunami could use a section 35 also section 35 with the Scotland act um to block Scotland's proposed gender reformer which would have introduced self-identification for those who wanted to change gender and allow 16 and 17 year olds to do so section 35 of the Scotland act allows the UK government to block a bill from a devolved body in acceptable circumstances if it believes it will have an adverse impact on the UK whiteboard so this this section 35 was always there it's just kind of a significant constitutional change it's not like not a major constitutional change but it was done a quite significantly constitutionally because soon I've used it for the first time it had never been used before um and it can be seen as somewhat reaffirming the sovereignty of the example so yeah that's everything in terms of constitutional reforms since 2010 what I'm going to look at now is the codification and entrenchment of the Constitution and the key debate over it okay so finally looking at the debate over the codification of the Constitution and starting off with what does decodification what do interaction mean the UK Constitution is uncodified and untrenched but in Trent sorry meaning that it is isn't written down in a single document and can be changed with a simple Act of parliament rather than being protected to agree to extend look at the first um the video on the nature resources of the UK Constitution for a bit more detail as a result one of the key debates in relation to constitutional change is whether the UK Constitution should be codified in a single document and entrenched so that it couldn't be easily changed including a bit of flights verse 11 develops in relation to codification um firstly how the Coalition was prepared for can be used as evidence for Advocates and opponents of codification so in preparation for the Coalition civil servants put together a cabinet Bank detailing the procedures for a coalition and it was agreed that Gordon Brown should be caretaker until the government was formed elected ministerial responsibility among cabinet members was also adapted as was government decision making respirations for a possible home Parliament and the drafting of the Covenant manual can be seen as a step towards the code of my Constitution because it was written down on the other hand it can be um seen as an argument foreign Constitution um as it was the ability of the ongoing fund Constitution to cope with a coalition and a home Parliament can be used as evidence of its robustness and flexibility so what I'm going to look at now as Arguments for the codification of the Constitution the first one is the Parliament and the Supreme Court will be better able to check the executive codification could enable Parliament to Becca better check and constrain the government making the government more responsive and accountable to the people's Representatives it would therefore provide a clearance separation of those for example the House of Lords can become elected and therefore be given greater powers or Parliament can have a veto on certain key decisions such as the appointment of ministers this would not only constrain the executive but also reform an undemocratic outdated aspect of the Constitution the Supreme Court could also strike down laws if they infringe upon the Constitution this said such changes potentially not the last one could be made without qualification um so the kind of power of parliament scrutinize the exactly could be going to be increased anything next argument is a codification would encourage public engagement and politics so codified constitutions help citizens hold the government to account by spelling out clearly what roles and Powers each branch has and what rights and duties citizens have voters are therefore able to judge how well different institutions or individual politicians have performed and it would help to engage more citizens in the political process and encourage political participation it could also be argued that a British Bill of Rights would give citizens a greater understanding of um of their rights and attachment to their rights and systems and finally a codified constitution would bring Britain into line with other Western democracies next segment is that the current constitution is too easy to amend so the British constitution is arguably too easy to amend us any statute law to be replaced by Parliament whatever it's constitutional implications such as the simple majority of fifth like 50 plus one in Poland for example the fixed on Parliament Act was arguably passed the short-term political reasons in relation to the Coalition but could have had far-reaching implications preventing a government with no majority from triggering the election infringement would protect the Constitution for political interference from an overarching executive and make it more likely that potential reforms are fully debated before being enacted and finding codification not funny but next one is a codification could also be seen as like codification can also effectively protect rights especially with the British Bill of Rights so codified Constitution protects rights as dairy change and can only be changed or curtailed with widespread popular and political support this prevents Hasty and heavy-handed actions that might be seen as desirable in the crisis would in practice undermine essential rights and freedoms um such an argument can be made about covid-19 lockdowns or Blair's counter terrorism measures you would also prevent a government overturning the Human Rights Act and removing rights as the conservative party has often threatened to do so and finally this argument is the municipality of the Judiciary this is mostly a Counterpoint to them the arguments again it's time to go through in a minute and that's the judges are neutral and arguably best place to interpret the Constitutional Constitution and make sure that it is applied fairly by public bodies including problem and finally some recent events can be used in Arguments for a code of our constitution um and that's that it hardly shouldn't have been so easy to change a fundamental part of the Constitution EU membership on the basis of an advisory resume referendum you support commanded the support of less than 50 of the franchise secondly on the Constitutional requirements were so unclear that the government had to be taken to the Supreme Court to prevent it from unilaterally triggering article 50 so it can be argued that coded from codified Constitution um would make the kind of constant main contribution a lot clearer and the rights and kind of roles different bodies a lot a lot clearer the division of powers is also very unclear in Britain whilst brexit has shown the power to be very centralized with divorce bodies having a little say in brexit despite having a series of um impact on their future because if Constitution could change that fundamental constitutional Provisions could be protected by requiring super majority in Parliament rather than through judicial review and it is uncertain if the government could authorize our combat without Parliament approval because that kind of there was a convention it's kind of with Theresa May it um it's not clear whether that's still applies so there's a lot of conventions in the UK system where it's very unclear who has power who has particular power and that can be argued to be um a drawback so now going into arguments that the codification arguments against the codification of the Constitution the first one of these is the UK's uncodified Constitution makes it very flexible which can be seen as an advantage the flexibility of Britain's uncodified Constitution has allowed the British system to evolve greatly and adapt to unusual circumstances when necessary the Constitution has evolved a great deal over the past few centuries making Britain a democratic system a more democratic system sorry and new laborers um program um just demonstrates that major changes can be made for example the evolution with the house of laws further many of the reformed Advocates of the Constitution of the code to find constitutional support such as the elected House of Lords or British Bill of Rights could be introduced without codification secondly the UK's uncodified Constitution is able to deal with emergencies the uncodified nature of the Constitution has allowed government to deal with emergencies such as suspending elections during the wars and dealing with um change circumcises such as security measures post 911 therefore allowing the system to develop in a way that suits Britain and can be better kept up today the emergency measures brought in to respond to the covert crisis which significantly impinges upon human rights but we're seen by many as Justified or a good example of this and another example is to prepare for the 2010 coalition government the cabinet manual adapted conventions such as collective responsibility and fixed upon this act which is that showed it can be really adaptable as well the next argument is the UK's on codified Constitution produces strong governments that can effectively pass laws so Britain's Constitution typically relies for strong governments that can carry out their legislative programs without facing the same level of checks and balances as in many codified constitutions such as in the US British Brokers can be confident that government's elected with a good majority can Implement their Manifesto pledges unlike in countries such as the US where it's very difficult to pass legislation in important areas such as climate change further one could argue that the media governments with smaller majorities and lower levels of public support face greater Jets and balances the next argument is that code conventions are an effective part of the UK's unqualified Constitution though they're not entrenched the conventions and tradition established by the UK Constitution are widely revered and therefore hard to ignore or change when changes do happen such as the creation of select committees they tend to help forward support and further conventions that I could be stronger and supporters of an uncodified Constitution argue so important contributions we went through arguing that it's far too easy to change and inventions makes it make the competition very unclear um but it can be argued they're actually a lot stronger than that um and that can be seen the 2020 progression and Parliament case where the discrete will upheld the convention the probation shouldn't be used by the government for political purposes capturing all of these conventions and traditions in a written document may be difficult and some aspects of the Constitutional framework could therefore be lost if the UK Constitution was and a few more arguments versus the codification would increase the power of Judges um so a codified constitution would increase power of unelected unaccountable and unrepresentative judges um to police the Constitutional and make complete the Constitution and make it difficult and make difficult decisions about how it should be applied which would drag them into Political matters and Grant them too much political power such issues and it's accountable to the people secondly I'm in Russian to write someone there should be a British Bill of Rights with the codification of the Constitution it can be argued that the Human Rights Act functions effectively um so it maintains parliamentary sovereignty um but does kind of is very effective it has a strong persuasive influence in ensuring that bills comply with it um and it's likely and the policies likely to act on any finding of incompatibility therefore it's like with the Human Rights Act has in fact provided a robust framework to the protection of British citizens um the rights of persistence and therefore a British Bill of Rights isn't necessary and finally just argue that the codification will be a complex process where a is not worth public support for it um but B it'd be very difficult to agree on a codified constitution and therefore conditions having more drawbacks than actually kind of commits into the process and then finally how recent events can be used in arguments against the codified Constitution just to give them some ideas and it's the brexit arguably showed how power is dispersed in Britain with the Supreme Court government and Parliament all being involved in the Treaty of multiple 50. the division of powers in the UK is normally very clear and the article 50 decision strengthen this division secondly clarifying the answers to questions or uncertainties on issues such as referendums doesn't require the codification of the Constitution just legislation there's also a delicate balance in the Constitution between law and politics and codifying the Constitution would upset that balance in favor of the other judges which isn't in Democratic interest s brexit is also a many question there's many a question for Westminster are not the Dual bodies um not because the brexit not because the UK is only centralized but because the UK's international relations are reserved to Westminster this is that kind of argument that brexit shows the how the UK is too centralized there's a good counter for that and finally certified constitutions freeze about balance of power um a political power according to the project prejudices of a particular moment as can be seen in the U.S whereas the unwritten British constitution continues to adapt um to the changing needs of the nation so yeah that was a pretty long video going through a lot of stuff right changes new labors performs um changes since 2010 and now looking at the codification of the Constitution but now going to some assay questions so evaluate the view that the UK Constitution should be codified and entrenched this one would effectively match up some of these arguments you could do a paragraph on rights protection so should there be a British Bill of Rights with a codification of the Constitution how they can protect the rights better including by giving judges more power versus the counter audience that it would give judges too much power and the human rights that protects um what's effectively you could then potentially do a power off on how um you get the flexibility of the UK's current constitution is an argument against codification versus the fact that um it could be argued to be too easy to offend um and governments can therefore exploit it and potentially a final paragraph you could do on something like um on the one-hound how the uncodified Constitution um enables governments to deal with emergencies and produce strong governments that can effectively pass laws and then you could counter that with potentially that actually the current constitution is too easy to remember um and wouldn't and not well predicted something like that so I'm gonna have kind of an essay on this in the UK government essay plans or the positive website but there's a lot of different ways if you're doing just kind of match up something else in terms of um evaluate the UK Constitution is fit for purpose you could hit three different ways in which it could be arguing kind of before and again so you're going to look at House of Lords reform for and against you could potentially look at the Human Rights Act um for and against and then finally you could maybe look at Devolution um before you answer whether that should be further division or you could actually potentially bad it could actually have a paragraph on codification in that um thirdly evaluate the view that constitutional reform was introduced since 1997 improve the British political system again just pick some reforms you could do especially House of Lords I'd probably recommend if you did the evolution and you can do the Human Rights Act you could do different ones you could do the Supreme Court as well with lots of different flexibility with that and then evaluate the view of the Constitutional reforms introduced since 2010 has had a significant impact on the UK Constitution so that you can potentially do brexit as a paragraph you could do the recall with MPS act [Music] um as a powered off and then maybe you could do further Devolution into Wales and Scotland as a paragraph but as I said none of these are like you have to do it this way it's just giving you some ideas of how you could potentially structure it so yeah that's everything in terms of this video as I said at the start of here the PDF you can see up there um you can find on the potency Spain website or the first link in the description um where you can also find lots of other resources to help you in your politics a level including ethical these questions um as well as a place to sign up for tutoring if that's something you'd be interesting so yeah um let me know in the comment section below if you've got any comments or questions I can help with and I'll see in the next video