The nature and sources of the UK constitution, the way it has developed over time, the changes since 1997, and the debates about further reform such as a codified constitution and the protection of rights.

What this dot point is asking

AQA wants you to explain the nature of the UK constitution (uncodified, unentrenched, unitary but increasingly devolved), identify its main sources, trace how it has developed, evaluate the major reforms since 1997, and argue both sides of whether the UK should adopt a codified constitution and a stronger protection of rights.

The nature of the UK constitution

A constitution is the set of rules defining how a country is governed, the powers of its institutions and the rights of its citizens. The UK constitution is uncodified: there is no single authoritative document, the rules are not entrenched, and they can be changed by an ordinary Act of Parliament rather than by a special procedure. This makes it unusual: most democracies (the United States, Germany, India) have codified, entrenched constitutions with a higher legal status. The UK constitution is best understood through two underlying principles.

The constitution is also unitary (sovereignty rests legally at the centre, in Westminster) although devolution has made it increasingly quasi-federal in practice. Because it is uncodified and flexible, the UK constitution evolves continually through new statutes, judicial rulings and shifting conventions, rather than through formal amendment. This flexibility is its defining strength and, critics say, its defining weakness: rights and rules can be changed by a simple Commons majority.

The sources of the constitution

• Statute law: Acts of Parliament, the most important source given parliamentary sovereignty (the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, the Human Rights Act 1998, the Scotland Act 1998). Statute overrides every other source.
• Common law: legal principles and rights developed by judges through cases, plus the royal prerogative (the residual powers of the Crown now exercised by ministers).
• Conventions: unwritten rules followed by habit and political pressure, such as the Salisbury Convention (the Lords does not block manifesto bills), the Sewel Convention (Westminster does not normally legislate on devolved matters without consent), and the convention that the monarch grants royal assent.
• Authoritative works: texts such as Erskine May (parliamentary procedure), A.V. Dicey (parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law) and Bagehot (the dignified and efficient parts of the constitution) that describe how the system works.
• Treaties and (historically) EU law: international agreements, and, until Brexit, the supremacy of EU law via the European Communities Act 1972, the single largest historic limit on sovereignty.

Constitutional reform since 1997

The debate over a codified constitution

Supporters argue codification would give clear, accessible rules, entrench citizens' rights against an over-mighty executive (the "elective dictatorship" Lord Hailsham warned of), end the uncertainty of relying on unenforceable conventions, and constrain constitutional change by a bare majority. Critics argue the present arrangement is flexible and easily updated, keeps power with elected and accountable politicians rather than unelected judges, has produced stable government for centuries, and would be hard to draft and entrench given parliamentary sovereignty itself. The debate connects directly to whether rights are better protected by ordinary statute (such as the Human Rights Act 1998, which a future Parliament could repeal) or by an entrenched higher-law document interpreted by the courts.

A linked debate is whether the post-1997 reforms went far enough. Devolution, the Human Rights Act, Lords reform and the creation of the Supreme Court professionalised and partly checked the system, but the executive still dominates the Commons, the Lords remains unelected, and rights remain repealable, so reformers argue the constitution is unfinished.