What are the governments key areas of constitutional reform?

The issue of the UK's relationship with the EU is another key area of the government's constitutional reform. The Conservatives have promised a referendum on June 23rd on whether to remain in, or come out of the EU. Therefore the government will not be able to stop MPs campaigning to leave the EU despite what the prime ministers views are.

Human rights is the government's key area of constitutional reform where the Conservatives have committed to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights, which is likely to face difficulties with the devolved governments, who want to stay in the ECHR and the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg Court. The House of Lords will resist this proposal because of the presence of senior lawyers on the Crossbenchers and the implacable opposition of both Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

The House of Lords Reform is another key area of the Conservative government's constitutional reform. Before, the Coalition government were committed to a largely or entirely elected second chamber. However many Conservative MPs had fears that such a chamber may become a rival to the Commons. Therefore the progress on developing a Lord reform bill was withdrawn. Despite this the current Conservative manifesto stating that House of Lords reform 'is not a priority in the next Parliament'. However, in 1999 the House of Lords Act was put forward to reduce the hereditary peers so the position within the Lords was a lot more to do with expertise rather than being part of a bloodline.

Another key area of the government's constitutional reform is the electoral reform. The current first past the post system can be seen as unfair, for example in the 2015 general election ukip was the party who was third highest ranking under the Labour Party but only gained one seat. This is seen as unfair, therefore there have been proposals to adapt this to the AV voting system, a referendum was held in 2011 but received low turn out and people voted against this change. However, this is now being looked into again.