A Citizens’ Assembly could undermine parliament
While most eyes at Westminster are resolutely fixed on the knock-out rounds of the Conservative leadership contest and Labour’s ongoing swithering on its Brexit position, an influential coalition of MPs announced plans for a Citizen’s Assembly. Six of the House of Commons most powerful Select Committees – Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy; Environmental Audit; Housing, Communities and Local Government; Science and Technology; Transport; and Treasury – came together to announce a huge consultation “on combatting climate change and achieving the pathway to net zero carbon emissions.” It was, they said, a response to “the Prime Minister’s commitment last week to an ambitious new target for the UK to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.”
Select Committees leaving Westminster and going out into the country to hear views is a perfectly normal and routine part of their work. Select Committees joining forces with one another to broaden the impact of their work is also not unusual. Six committees combining forces is, however, not common practice and labelling the consultation a Citizen’s Assembly is certainly noteworthy. By using the phrase for what would otherwise be a perfectly normal and routine fact-finding trip makes it into something more. So what does the emergence of this innovative exercise mean in reality? Is it anything more than the application of a new name to an existing – if larger – process, or does it herald a new era of popular consultation?
The phrase has increasingly been bandied about at Westminster in recent months as Brexit has become bogged down in parliamentary deadlock. Rory Stewart suggested a Citizen Assembly as part of his leadership pitch. Neither a General Election nor another referendum holds much allure for the leaderships of the two big Westminster parties. The desperate search for an answer short of a General Election has increased interest in extra-Parliamentary processes. In looking for a new answer to an intractable problem politicians are in danger of undermining the Parliamentary Sovereignty which they are supposed to protect. Is the House of Commons, along with the House of Lords (whose composition can be debated and certainly needs further reform), not the nation’s Citizen’s Assembly?
The temptation to bypass Parliament is obvious and seductive. Referendums, a very recent phenomenon in British politics, have rarely provided the definitive answer they are called to provide. But they have proved irresistible to weak Prime Ministers looking for a way to move past a party breaking problem. In his excellent Reith Lectures, the former Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption warns eloquently of the danger of majoritarian tyranny. Parliament has been very effective at ensuring the voice of the minority is heeded in our national life just as much as the majority is. Referendums enable a majority to claim an absolute victory and to disregard the opinion of the minority. It is no wonder that Mrs Thatcher agreed with Clement Attlee in his dislike of referendums.
In their announcement the Select Committees said: “The Citizens’ Assembly is designed to explore views on the fair sharing of potential costs of different policy choices and is intended to provide input to future select committee activity and will inform political debate and Government policy making.” It is a sensible and laudable ambition, especially when addressing the most serious challenge of our time. It is right and necessary for our politicians to keep listening to the views of those who send them to the House of Commons, but by labelling their listening exercise a Citizen’s Assembly there is a suggestion of something more than just listening. People will not want to spend the time and money to come together from across the country just to talk. It suggests action and decision-making.
The extra-Parliamentary process of a referendum has done much damage to Parliament’s confidence, reputation and authority. In their quest to engage popular opinion more effectively MPs need to be very careful they do not further undermine the Parliamentary and political processes. There are good reasons why our Parliamentary process has proved one of the most successful, stable and effective ways of assembling British citizens to debate the great issues of the day and to hold the government to account. We should all be wary of further initiatives, no matter how well-intentioned, which further undermine Parliament’s Sovereignty.