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

Lord Pitkeathley of Camden Town Excerpts

Friday 4th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pitkeathley of Camden Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I was once told that the constitution was best left to the lawyers, the historians and the former Cabinet Ministers. So naturally, here I am, a musician turned town centre advocate, about to offer my thoughts, very much aware of the esteemed company in which I do so. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beith, for introducing this important debate and for, I am sure, skilfully participating in the committee that brought it to us.

I come to this not even as a constitutional theorist, but as someone who has spent much of his life trying to make things work on the ground: in communities, town centres and within local partnerships. Much of today’s discussion will rightly centre on the risks to our constitution, such as executive overreach, erosion of convention and the creeping use of powers that bypass proper scrutiny. I share those concerns, but I speak in cautious praise of the constitution as it currently stands. Yes, it is uncodified, untidy and sometimes obscure, but its flexibility is, in many ways, its quiet genius.

As we have already heard alluded to today, we have weathered recent constitutional storms—Brexit, Prorogation, Covid emergency powers—without paralysis or collapse. That is no small thing. It shows that our system, for all its flaws, still rests on something more than law. It rests on values, precedent and a shared expectation that power must answer to principle.

The so-called good chaps theory of government, as already referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, has taken a few knocks of late, let us be honest, but it has not collapsed entirely. Perhaps it is time we updated the idea to be less about “chaps” and more about a culture of stewardship that reflects modern governance and today’s public.

How do we safeguard this quiet genius without fixing it in stone? Perhaps inevitably, as we have already heard, one of the committee’s recommendations is the appointment of a senior Minister for constitutional responsibility. The answer to many a problem in Whitehall has been to appoint a Minister for something. We have to acknowledge the Government’s response to that point and the difficulties with it, as we have already heard alluded to. Perhaps the answer lies not in centralising that responsibility, but in sharing it. Perhaps the committee could undertake an annual constitutional audit across both Houses, which could help embed a longer-term sense of constitutional care, one that is not so easily swept aside in reshuffles or by headlines. In my experience, including in my daily work, for which I refer the House to my register of interests, the most effective accountability often comes not from central control, but from shared, distributed responsibility, as indeed we may experience in this very place.

I do not for a moment suggest that we rest easy, nor should we rush to codify or concrete a system that, for all its quirks, has helped us adapt, absorb shocks and correct course where necessary. In a world where constitutions are increasingly polarised or ignored, ours, unwritten though it may be, has so far held. Perhaps this report shows us how to hold it better—not by rewriting the rules, but by renewing the responsibility. For that, it deserves our thanks.