Cross-Document Control Note

Version 5 Working Draft

Purpose of this note

This note records the principles that should be carried consistently across this constitutional program. It is intended to prevent drift as the Common Law Constitution, House of Commons Reform, House of Lords Reform Paper and Tax and Economics Paper are revised into the Version 5 package.

Origin of the programme

I did not begin with a desire to write a constitution for its own sake. It began with a practical constitutional observation: the House of Commons has become too much the machine by which government supervises the citizen, and too little the means by which the citizen supervises government. The purpose of this program is to restore Parliament's primary constitutional work: scrutiny of executive power, control of public money, presentation of grievances, supervision of public bodies, and maintenance of the law. The Constitution exists to secure that restoration.

Central diagnosis

Statute has been used for power while liberty was left to ancient custom. The modern constitutional problem has not usually come by tyranny, but by accumulation.

Constitutional method

The Constitution is to government what legislation is to citizens: it defines prohibited acts and limits of authority. What is not prohibited remains politically open. The Constitution should not become a programme for government.

Public power

Public power is held on trust. Delegation is permitted. Orphan power is not. Operational independence may protect particular judgments. It must not create constitutional independence.

Redress

The state must prove its authority. The citizen need not prove his freedom. Where public authority interferes with liberty, property, livelihood, lawful activity, status, licence, benefit or protected interest, the burden of proof lies on the authority.

Financial stewardship

Public money is not the government’s money. It is the people’s money, taken by law and held on trust for lawful public purposes. The Chancellor should be guardian of that trust within government; the Commons should be guardian of that trust over government; and the taxpayer should be able to see how that trust is being kept.

New Lords

The New Lords provides the longer constitutional view within Parliament. It is not principally a constitutional court; it does not govern; it does not compete with the Commons. It is the parliamentary chamber of constitutional memory, restraint and review.

Deadlock

Once the New Lords is fully elected, the Parliament Acts should be repealed. Persistent deadlock between the two Houses should be resolved by reference to the people by plebiscite. The Constitution states the principle; Enabling Legislation supplies the machinery.

ECHR and HRA

The ECHR and Human Rights Act are enumerated-rights instruments. This paper proceeds from common-law principles: ancient liberties, government under law, freedom unless lawfully restrained, and remedies against unlawful power.

Devolution

Commons and Lords reform concern the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Devolved assemblies cannot opt out of Westminster reform while remaining represented in the House of Commons. The application of the Common Law Constitution to devolved institutions and devolved matters is a separate question. England’s lack of its own devolved chamber is recognised but left for another day.

Implementation formula

Principle in the Constitution. Machinery in Enabling Legislation. Practice in Standing Orders.

Test for future amendments

Any proposed amendment should be tested by asking whether it strengthens the citizen’s ability to supervise government through Parliament; makes public power more visible, lawful, accountable and redressable; preserves the common-law character of the settlement; belongs in the Constitution rather than Enabling Legislation; and preserves the founding diagnosis that statute has been used for power while liberty was left to ancient custom.

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