UK Constitution: Oversight and Responsibility (Report from the Constitution Committee)

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Friday 4th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise with a mixture of intimidation and emboldenment to make my remarks. I have no experience in the law at all, and I have very little direct experience of the world of politics. But I am part of the general public about whom the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, just adduced his concerns as to their ability to understand our constitution; therefore, I am heartened by the presence in the Gallery of members of the public. I would love there to be some kind of an assessment as they leave as to how much of our debate they have understood.

I am now a member of the Constitution Committee, which is a great honour. I see three members here, and each has spoken; that adds to my sense of intimidation. But when I was appointed, I took the report now before us just to see what I was getting into—and a very good preparation it has proved to be for this debate.

I was interested in a remark that appears right at the beginning of the report. It is hinted at—it is half-referred to—and, in this debate, has been mentioned only once, by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger. That is the desire stated in the manifesto of the Government to put forward a commission for ethics and integrity. Since I claim a little bit of experience in the realm of ethics, I feel now a bit more emboldened to launch forth on a discussion of this paper.

I was interested by a distinction that was made under the heading, “Safeguarding the constitution: stewardship and policy”; that is, the distinction between stewardship of the constitution and the policy outworkings —how bits and pieces of policy impact on the constitution, are affected by it, or threaten it, or whatever. I was interested in the stewardship aspect and felt that a commission for ethics and integrity could snuggle in quite nicely as a duty of the commission appointed to safeguard the constitution.

It reminds me of a debate we are currently having in our Constitution Committee about the rule of law. Noble Lords might have thought we all knew what that was; speaking just for myself, I thought I knew what it was. But the more we get experts to come and tell us about it, the more we realise that the big distinction is between a thin understanding of the rule of law and a thick understanding. It is the thin understanding—the procedural aspects of what the rule of law is—that most people are in agreement with and where there is not much to argue about. I think there is the same distinction between the stewardship of the constitution and the policies that emanate from it.

However, I read that events have overtaken that declaration, that commitment that was made to have such a commission. The Prime Minister has now repackaged the whole idea. The idea of a commission has been abandoned. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, had a nautical metaphor. The metaphor called to do the work here is that the concerns for those who want to steward the constitution should be gathered under an umbrella, and so one is bound to ask: what would that pick up? What would that do? What bits and pieces would be gathered under that umbrella? The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments would be one, the Committee on Standards in Public Life another; the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards; the Civil Service Commission; the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme; the House of Lords Appointments Commission; the Electoral Commission; the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, IPSA; the UK Statistics Authority; and the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists—well, what an umbrella.

I would prefer to change the metaphor and say that anybody wanting to take an overview of that bunch of previously quasi- or semi-independent bodies would be offering us a bucket of eels. They have their own intrinsic codes, and we are being asked to believe that a commission could somehow magic an overview of the combined work of all those different bodies, and I say that is impossible.

On ethics, this is a post-modern age where what is called a metanarrative no longer exists, where people make up their own ethical standards as they go along. A Welsh pop band, the Manic Street Preachers—I wheel this one out every now and again to prove to my children that I am relevant—had an album titled, “This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours”. I believe that the idea of the constitution, and the stewardship of the constitution, in that thin sense, is incumbent upon us all, because that is a counterintuitive stance in an age where breaking things up, looking at things in a piecemeal way, is more the order of the day.

I have made my remarks; I am glad that I have done it. I am looking forward to my lunch, and I hope that the general public will be more and more aware of what our constitution is. If not, we should ask ourselves: what are we going to do about that?