Review of the UK Constitution: Final report

In 2022 the Institute for Government and the Bennett Institute for Public Policy embarked on an ambitious project to review the UK constitution. This report, the final in a series of papers published over the past 18 months, concludes that review. The UK’s constitution has been tested to its limits and found in urgent need of reform, says a major new joint report by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy and Institute for Government (IfG). The report warns that a tumultuous period in UK politics has damaged trust in UK politics, its political institutions, and its international reputation as a stable democracy – with further injury inflicted by a series of scandals involving ministers and MPs, including those in the highest offices having been found to have broken the law. The new IfG/Bennett report concludes an 18-month long review of the UK constitution – supported by a high-level advisory board including former supreme court judge Baroness Hale, former ministers Sir Robert Buckland and Sir David Lidington, and shadow leader of the House of Lords Baroness Smith of Basildon and former Mayor of Liverpool, Joanna Anderson. Taking a non-partisan and evidence-based approach, the review makes robust recommendations designed to re-assert the UK’s fundamental constitutional principles, establish them as a stable basis for the operation of government and reassure the public that they will be enforced.