Constitutional reform in the United Kingdom

There have been various proposals for constitutional reform in the United Kingdom. ^[1]

Current system

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a constitutional monarchy ^[2] governed via a Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. It comprises the four countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. ^{[2] [3]}

The UK operates a system of devolution from a central UK parliament and prime minister as head of government, to the devolved legislatures of the Scottish Parliament, Senedd and Northern Ireland Assembly with their respective first ministers. In England, Greater London, combined authorities, and the counties of Cornwall and Yorkshire, have varying degrees of devolved powers. There are proposals for an England-wide or regional devolution. ^{[4] [5]}

The constitution of the United Kingdom is an uncodified constitution. There are two chambers of the UK parliament: the House of Commons and House of Lords. The UK has various overseas territories and crown dependencies, and is composed of three legal jurisdictions.

Proposed reforms

Dissolution

• Independence of Wales and Scotland and the unification of Ireland. ^{[6] [7] [8]}
• Confederation of separate sovereign states. ^[9]

National governance

• Increase in devolved powers to the constituent countries of the UK such as proposed further Welsh devolution and Scottish devolution and perhaps further Northern Irish reform. ^{[10] [11]}
• Adopt a federal system of governance between the countries of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. ^{[10] [12] [13]}

Parliamentary reform

• Reforming the House of Lords; through either modification of the appointment process, reducing the number of Lords, removing the Lords Spiritual, or abolition. ^[14]
• A "Senate of Nations and Regions" to replace the House of Lords. ^[15]
• Relocating Parliament ^[16] or the House of Lords ^[17]

Electoral reform

Electoral reform, such as by replacing the first-past-the-post voting system with proportional representation and/or lowering the voting age to 16. ^[18] A referendum to change the voting system to "alternative vote" (AV) was held in 2011, but failed by a substantial margin.

Constitution codification

Codification of the UK constitution has been debated frequently, ^[19] and included in a number of manifestos of political parties. ^[20]

Reform of monarchy

• Reform of the monarchy, which includes abolishing the monarchy. Abolishment of the monarchy is advocated by republicanism in the UK. ^{[21] [22]}

Religious reform

• Ending the Church of England's status as the official church of the United Kingdom, known as disestablishment of the Church, which would make the UK a non-religious, secular state. ^{[23] [24] [25]}

Human rights legislation

There have been numerous proposals to reform or replace the Human Rights Act 1998. In 2015, the Conservative government proposed a British Bill of Rights, ^[26] though did not introduce legislation. In 2022, a Bill of Rights Bill was introduced in the Commons but subsequently dropped. ^[27]

See also

• Commonwealth of Britain Bill
• History of the constitution of the United Kingdom

References

1. Richard Jones. "Constitutional Reform and the Contribution of the Political Parties since the Beginning of the 20th Century" (PDF). Hummedia.manchester.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 July 2022.
2. "Toponymic guidelines for map and other editors, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". GOV.UK. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
3. "Standard: ISO 3166 — Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivision". Iso.org. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
4. "The big read: Can federalism ever work in the UK?". HeraldScotland. 22 April 2018. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
5. "Federalism". LII / Legal Information Institute. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
6. "Welsh independence: Thousands march through Wrexham". BBC News. 2 July 2022. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
7. "Scottish independence: Will there be a second referendum?". BBC News. 28 June 2022. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
8. "The inevitability of a united Ireland". Politico.eu. 18 May 2022. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
9. "StackPath". Instituteforgovernment.org.uk. 3 February 2022. Retrieved 11 April 2022.
10. "Reforming our Union 2021: summary [HTML]". GOV.WALES. 8 July 2021. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
11. Dr Umesh Prabhu (10 July 2017). "More devolution rather than independence: time for the SNP to rediscover the 'middle way'". British Politics and Policy at LSE. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
12. "The Labour 'radical federalism' report is a necessary intervention - but an avoidable disappointment". Nation.Cymru. 14 January 2021. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
13. Rodgers, Sienna (9 September 2021). "What is radical federalism, what would it look like and should Labour back it?". LabourList. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
14. "House of Lords reform". UK Parliament.
15. "Labour call for Senate of the Nations and Regions to replace the House of Lords". Nation.Cymru. 4 July 2022. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
16. Adonis, Andrew (5 January 2022). "Relocating parliament to Birmingham or Manchester is an idea whose time has come". prospectmagazine.co.uk.
17. Coleman, Charley (9 June 2022). "Co-location of the Houses of Parliament". lordslibrary.parliament.uk.
18. "Proportional Representation". Electoral-reform.org.uk. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
19. Melton, James (2015). TO CODIFY OR NOT TO CODIFY? (PDF). Constitution Unit, UCL.
20. Shaylor, Harrison (8 January 2020). "Do we need a written constitution?". The Constitution Unit Blog. Retrieved 22 April 2025.
21. "Queen has "huge problem" as support for abolishing monarchy rises". Newsweek. 4 May 2022. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
22. "Clearly Britain loses more than it gains from the monarchy. Let us be brave and end it | Polly Toynbee". The Guardian . 17 February 2022. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
23. "The disestablishment of the church is now necessary and inevitable | Giles Fraser: Loose canon". The Guardian . 7 September 2017. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
24. Letters (8 September 2017). "Whether or not to disestablish the Church of England | Letters". The Guardian . Retrieved 4 July 2022.
25. "Disestablish and be damned". Newhumanist.org.uk. 16 October 2017. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
26. "David Cameron: I'll fix human rights 'mess'". BBC News. 15 June 2015.
27. "Liz Truss halts Dominic Raab's bill of rights plan". the Guardian. 7 September 2022. Retrieved 7 September 2022.