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Video introducing study into how the coalition has changed how government works

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How the coalition government works (UCL)

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From January to December 2011, Professor Robert Hazell and Dr Ben Yong were granted access behind the closed doors of the coalition government. The pair interviewed 150 coalition members to assess whether the coalition has provided a stable government and just how the two parties work together whilst maintaining distinct identities.

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Ed Miliband proposes elected senate of the regions to replace the House of Lords

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Labour would replace the House of Lords with an elected senate if the party won next May's general election, party leader Ed Miliband has said.

He told a conference in Blackpool on Saturday the current system "fails to represent large parts of the UK".

Senators would be elected from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English regions instead of from constituencies like MPs.

This will give the senate a "clearly defined different role", Labour says.

Mr Miliband said the issue was not just constitutional, but economic, social and one of fairness.

'A Britain that works for all'

He added: "We need to do so much more to reverse a century of centralisation that we've seen in our country.

"The House of Lords is one of the biggest pieces of unfinished business in our constitution.

"The North West has nearly the same population as London, but five times more members of the House of Lords are from London than from the North West.

"London has more members in the House of Lords than the East Midlands, West Midlands, Wales, Northern Ireland, the North East and Yorkshire and Humber added together.

"No wonder the recovery isn't working for most parts of Britain when the voices of most parts of Britain aren't being heard.

"It's time to reform the way we're governed, it's time every part of our country had a voice at the heart of our politics, it's time to have a senate of the nations and regions which serves our whole country so that we can truly build a Britain that works for all and not just for some."

'Lip service'

But the Liberal Democrats have accused Labour of joining forces with Conservative MPs two years ago to wreck their plans to reform the Lords.

The Liberal Democrats wanted to change the make-up of the Lords by seeing 80% of peers elected and the total number of members halved to 450.

Lib Dem deputy leader Sir Malcolm Bruce said: "Ed Miliband partnered up with backbench Tories to destroy the best chance this country has had to reform the Lords.

"We could have given the UK greater representation in Parliament, but when presented with the chance, he bottled it; turned his back and ran.

"This is simply lip service from a Labour party who have no intention of actually delivering."

Mr Miliband's announcement is part of a wider effort by Labour to pursue a policy of devolving power from Westminster.

He has said he would like a "constitutional convention" after the elections to discuss devolution plans for England.

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Labour would replace the House of Lords with an elected senate if the party won next May's general election, party leader Ed Miliband has said. He told a conference in Blackpool on Saturday the current system "fails to represent large parts of the UK".

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Devolution for the English regions is a bit like trying to catch a bus - you miss the first one, hang around for a while, and then half a dozen turn up virtually nose-to-tail.

Over the past few months just about every senior cabinet minister and their shadow have trekked north to announce that taxpayers' money by the lorry load will be heading our way and decisions on how to spend it will be made here.

There is, of course, the inevitable "but".

Not surprisingly it all depends on whether the minister or shadow making the promise is elected into government at next year's general election.

George Osborne and David Cameron have now twice appeared as a double act in Yorkshire to push their vision of a "Northern Powerhouse" linking up neighbouring cities including Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull and Newcastle with superfast trains stuffed with inward investors.

A few weeks earlier the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, took part in a one-day conference of Yorkshire's "movers and shakers" making much the same point.

Not to be outdone, Labour leader Ed Miliband, trailed by several camera crews on a tour of an engineering works near Leeds, promised to snatch £30bn from Whitehall-based civil servants and hand it over to the North in a five-year plan.

All base their ideas on what they now see as the obvious logic that "local people know best" how to invest public money to boost the economy and bridge England's North/South gap.

The proposals vary, but democratic accountability, in the form of new directly-elected assemblies or regional parliaments, will not come into it.

Instead, extra responsibilities will be given to the various local and regional institutions already in place.

They all point out that when that first devolution bus carrying the destination board "directly-elected assemblies" reached the North a decade ago it found such a derisory number waiting at the stop that the service was cancelled for ever.

That was in 2004 when the then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott planned referendums on whether three assemblies should be set up for Yorkshire, The North West and the North East.

The idea was met with an outbreak of apathy on such a monumental scale that Mr Prescott pulled the plug on two of them.

The third, for the North East, went ahead but saw an abysmally low turnout. Those that bothered to vote gave a thumping majority to the "no" camp.

As a result, none of the mainstream party leaders are going to risk ridicule by resurrecting the plans for another tier of salaried politicians in the north of England.

That despite equally strong support from the same party leaders for boosting the devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly.

'Boris-style' mayors?

The idea is not completely dead in Yorkshire.

There are still calls for a new elected assembly for either the county or "The North" but the voices are from fringe parties and pressure groups not in any danger of being part of the next government.

The existing institutions vary in make-up and geographic boundaries.

Some, like Combined Authorities; business-led Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and City Regions have been set up by the coalition government to take on the job.

Local authorities, set up by the Victorians in their present form, will play a major role both directly and indirectly.

The latest idea for the North does involve a new wave of elections but only one new politician so far.

The Chancellor wants a "Boris-style", directly-elected "metro mayor" for Greater Manchester with powers over housing, transport and policing together with a big say on skills, welfare to work, and health and social care.

The new post, maybe the first of many, will be in office by 2017.

There is, of course, a "but" - see above.
A special devolution debate More power for Yorkshire? will be shown on BBC One in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire at 22:35 GMT on Wednesday 5 November.

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Devolution for the English regions is a bit like trying to catch a bus - you miss the first one, hang around for a while, and then half a dozen turn up virtually nose-to-tail.

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UK should consider a written constitution

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UK should consider a written constitution

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Britain's most senior judge says there are "powerful arguments" to adopt a written constitution like the US - claiming it would help the UK overturn rulings from the European Court of Human Rights.

While "a constitution is no absolute guarantor of the rule of law" there are "powerful arguments" in favour of having one, according to Lord Neuberger, president of the Supreme Court.

"We are in a new world whose increasing complexity appears to require virtually every activity and organisation to have formal rules as to how it is to be run and to work, and there is no obvious reason why that should not apply to the most important organisation of the lot."

He added: "We are now in what to some people might seem to be in an unsatisfactory position with an international treaty, as interpreted by an international court, namely the European Convention on Human Rights, acting as a semi-constitution."

If Britain had its own constitution, it "would presumably have primacy over decisions of the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg and even those of the EU Court in Luxembourg". And in cases where European decisions "appeared to be inconsistent with any fundamental constitutional principles", the British "principles would prevail".

His comments were made at a keynote speech to 150 lawyers, judges and academics at the Legal Wales conference in Bangor University.

Speaking at the event last Friday, Lord Neuberger warned that as things stand, "without an overriding constitution, it is very difficult for a UK court to adopt such an approach".

And although Britain has "managed pretty well without a constitution" until now, "the fact that we managed well without a constitution in a very different world from that which we now inhabit may be a point of limited force when applied to the present".

His remarks come just months after a consultation was launched by the Commons political and constitutional reform select committee into whether people favour a written constitution. The consultation, launched in July, ends next January.

Those who think Britain already has a constitution, in the form of things like the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, are mistaken, he said; "these are merely a collection of provisions which developed somewhat haphazardly to deal with specific historical events or crises."

If "our system of Government is going to be significantly reconsidered and restructured, there is obviously a more powerful case for a written constitution," he claimed.

The process of doing this "may help focus minds on the details of the restructuring," and "a new formal constitution should provide the new order with a clarity and certainty which may otherwise be lacking".

Such a move would not be without risk, he warned. "Grafting a written constitution onto our pragmatic system would almost inevitably involve something of a leap in the dark, and many people may fear that it would turn out to be a classic example of a well-intentioned innovation which had all sorts of unintended and undesired consequences."

However, he said the issue cannot be ignored. "Over the next few years we are going to have to consider and make difficult and important decisions about the constitutional foundations of the UK, decisions which will vitally affect us and future generations."

And such decisions should be approached with "a mixture of bravery, prudence and principl", he added.

His comments come just a week after Justice Secretary Chris Grayling announced Conservative plans to abolish the Human Rights Act and create a British "Bill of Rights" if they win the 2015 general election - proposals which would relegate European courts to an advisory role and give British judges the final say when making decisions.

Graham Allen MP, chair of the Commons political and constitutional reform select committee, said: "It appears he's opening the door and saying there's more of a case now for a written constitution, and when someone of his eminence makes even an allusion rather than a statement to that effect, I think it's an extremely powerful remark which needs to be taken seriously."

He added: "And in the current circumstances, devolution needing to be made permanent rather than unpicked, the case for putting together a written constitution of the sort that we are consulting on is reinforced."

Reuse content

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UK should consider a written constitution, says top judge

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Britain's most senior judge says there are "powerful arguments" to adopt a written constitution like the US - claiming it would help the UK overturn rulings from the European Court of Human Rights. While "a constitution is no absolute guarantor of the rule of law" there are "powerful arguments" in favour of having one, according to Lord Neuberger, president of the Supreme Court.

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Palace of Westminster needs £3bn reforms. The Guardian,

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John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, has warned that a failure to spend "not inconsequential" sums of public money on refurbishment could lead to parliament abandoning the site of the palace of Westminster.

Giving a speech to the Hansard society, Bercow, who has presided over Commons debates since June 2009, admitted that an estimate of £3bn for refurbishment of the deteriorating 19th-century building was "a realistic scenario", but that it was probably "on the cautious side". Though he added: "We can't possibly be held to a figure at this stage."

The palace of Westminster suffers from flooding, has crumbling stone work and contains asbestos. A 2012 study by the palace of Westminster restoration and renewal group, led by Dr Richard Ware, concluded that without renovation, the building would suffer irreversible damage and suggested that MPs could move to a different venue while repairs were taking place.

"It would be a huge pity if we decided that by the time we had reached the 200 th anniversary of the vast fire which consumed the old Parliament and brought this one in to being we had to abandon this site and look elsewhere in order to serve the public interest properly", Bercow said.

"Yet I will tell you in all candour that unless management of the very highest quality and a not inconsequential sum of public money are deployed on this estate over the next ten years that will be the outcome."

Bercow argued that although he regarded himself as a reformer, he was not against tradition. He said he was very uneasy about the idea of decanting parliament to a different building, arguing that once MPs had moved out, it would be difficult for them to return. He stressed that parliament would have to take professional advice on the matter and he did not rule out moving parliament outside London.

In his speech, Bercow concluded: "This is a fabulous institution located in awesome surroundings. It must not have the ethos of a museum. It will require bold and imaginative managerial leadership to ensure that we are a parliament fit for purpose and that this Victorian legacy can be rendered practical for contemporary representation."

In December, a committee of MPs went against Bercow's recommendation and called for the recruitment of the Australian parliamentary official Carol Mills as the new clerk and chief executive of the House of Commons to be terminated and for the role to be split into two.

Bercow argued that he had sought to appoint Mills because she had both experience of working with parliamentary procedure and managing an organisation - something the role requires in a modern parliamentary democracy.

Topics

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MPs could be forced to 'abandon' crumbling Westminster, Speaker warns

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John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, has warned that a failure to spend "not inconsequential" sums of public money on refurbishment could lead to parliament abandoning the site of the palace of Westminster.

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David Cameron propose British Bill of Rights

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David Cameron propose British Bill of Rights

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Criticises ECHR- undermines parliamentary sovereignty. The Telegraph

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The European Convention on Human Rights is a monument to civilisation. On a continent disfigured by the barbarity of fascism and the tyranny of communism, it sought to set out and safeguard the freedoms that were every citizen's democratic right.

For playing a leading role in its drafting, Britain can and should be proud. But no one should be proud of what has happened since. In the hands of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the Convention has been transmuted into a weapon of judicial activism - a means for unaccountable judges to extend and transform the rights it contains in ways that were never intended. In his party conference speech on Wednesday, David Cameron listed some: "Rulings to stop us deporting suspected terrorists. The suggestion that you've got to apply the human rights convention even on the battlefields of Helmand. And now, they want to give prisoners the vote."

By treating the Convention as a "living instrument", Strasbourg has bent it to suit its own needs. The most notorious case is Article 8, the right to a private and family life. This is routinely cited by illegal migrants to avoid deportation, even though the original text was intended to refer to state surveillance and coercion. And Britain's lack of a formal constitution, while a blessing in many other ways, means that Strasbourg's rulings must be treated by our judges as holy writ - a process with which many are happy to comply.

The Conservatives plan to change this. As Michael Howard argues, they intend - if they win power in 2015 - to replace Labour's discredited Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. The provisions of the European Convention will remain intact, but codicils will be attached that set out their proper scope - tests of territoriality and triviality intended to end the most blatant abuses. On top of this, sovereignty and supremacy will be returned to Parliament: not only will lawmakers be able to update the codicils as needed, but the Court's rulings will become advisory rather than compulsory. If Strasbourg will not accept this, Britain will use its final sanction: withdrawal.

Some will doubtless accuse Mr Cameron - and Chris Grayling, his Justice Secretary - of undermining the cause of human rights. But it is Strasbourg that has done that already. Lord Judge, the former Lord Chief Justice, this week decried its "dramatic and unconstitutional extension of judicial authority", accusing it of discarding propriety and legality in imposing its will on Parliament. The Tories' plan promises not only to restore judicial balance, but to return human rights law to its original noble purpose. It should have every Briton's full support.

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A British Bill of Rights should be welcomed

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The European Convention on Human Rights is a monument to civilisation. On a continent disfigured by the barbarity of fascism and the tyranny of communism, it sought to set out and safeguard the freedoms that were every citizen's democratic right. For playing a leading role in its drafting, Britain can and should be proud.

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Short video explaining how to add a note to Padlet

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This Padlet is a place to share and organise contemporary examples that may be of use in the exam. Any news stories you find can be placed in the appropriate area.

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6th resignation from the coalition. Stepped down over expenses claims. Article compares coalition's record to Gordon Brown's. Guardian.

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After weeks of enormous political pressure, culture secretary Maria Miller has finally decided to step down from her post, claiming in a letter written to the prime minister that the controversy over her expenses had "become a distraction from the vital work this government is doing".

That makes her the sixth cabinet minister to have resigned from David Cameron's cabinet since he came to power in 2010. If you include less senior ministers and under secretaries then she becomes the 17th.

Miller is the second so far to have stepped down over her expenses claims. David Laws, who resigned in 2010 for similar reasons, was the shortest serving cabinet minister in modern political history.

Andrew Mitchell, Liam Fox and Chris Huhne all resigned following conduct scandals while Lord Strathclyde wanted to move into the private sector.

Brown versus Cameron

Nine cabinet ministers resigned under Gordon Brown's three year premiership, equivalent to three a year. This is twice Cameron's rate of 1.5 per year.

Brown was prime minister in 2008 when the expenses storm took off and became a catalyst in the resignation of two cabinet members: Geoff Hoon and Jacqui Smith.

Hazel Blears was also facing criticism over her expenses when she resigned on the day before the European and local elections in 2009. However, her stepping down was phrased in the terms of a political statement - she wore a badge reading "rocking the boat" when doing it.

Why did they step down?

Besides financial scandals, the other big issue for Brown was policy disagreement, which was the context within which three of his cabinet ministers stood down.

By way of contrast, not one member of Cameron's cabinet has stood down over policy, despite some airing dissenting views quite publicly.

This change does not mean that there has been a substantial change in the behaviour of ministers. Rather, the press and media now routinely attack government ministers for issues that they mostly used to ignore or not comment upon. Whether standards in public life have substantially deteriorated is much debated, and has caused a range of new bodies to be set up since the 1990s. But there are few signs that the change of media behaviours is about to go away, nor that ministers or MPs have really taken to heart the lesson that deference can no longer be expected.

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Topics

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Maria Miller makes it six cabinet minister resignations under Cameron

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After weeks of enormous political pressure, culture secretary Maria Miller has finally decided to step down from her post, claiming in a letter written to the prime minister that the controversy over her expenses had "become a distraction from the vital work this government is doing".