Summary
Aimed at restoring public trust in politics, this Green
Paper
'The
Governance of Britain' (Cm. 7170) sets out the Government's vision and
proposals for constitutional renewal. Plans focus particularly on modernising
the role of the Executive in the UK system of governance.
The four main
themes are:
- Limiting the power of the executive
- Making the
executive more accountable
- Re-invigorating democracy
- Improving
the relationship between the citizen and the state.
The
Government will surrender or limit powers that should not be exercised
exclusively by the executive.
Powers to be surrendered or limited
include:
- Deploying troops abroad
- Dissolution and recall of
Parliament
- Ratifying international treaties without decision by
Parliament
- Determining the rules governing entitlement to passports
- Restricting parliamentary oversight of the intelligence services
- Choosing bishops
- Having a say in appointment of judges
- Establishing the rules governing the Civil Service.
There will
also be increased Parliamentary scrutiny of some public appointments and a
review of the role of the Attorney General to ensure the office retains public
confidence.
Proposals to make the executive more accountable include:
- Publishing a National Security Strategy
- Introducing a
pre-Queen's Speech consultative process on the legislative programme
- Simplifying the reporting of Government expenditure
- Annual
Parliamentary debates on the objectives and plans of government departments
- Limiting pre-release of official statistics to ministers to 24 hours
before publication.
For democratic reform, the Government will:
- Develop a substantially or wholly elected House of Lords
- Better enable local people to hold service providers to account
- Place a duty on public bodies to involve local people in major decisions
- Assess merits of giving local communities the ability to apply for
devolved or delegated budgets
- Consult on moving election days to the
weekend
- Complete and publish a review of voting systems
- Review the provisions that govern the right to protest near Parliament.
A consultation to develop a British statement of values together
with a review of British citizenship, a Youth Citizenship Commission to look at
citizenship education and reducing the voting age, and the consideration of a
Bill of Rights and Duties, complete the proposals.
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