The coming year

How the parameters of the constitution will shape the politics of 2024

The current parliament must end, by automatic operation of law, before the end of this year.

By reason of various Acts of Parliament, the parliament elected in December 2019 has to end, at its latest, by the fifth anniversary of when the newly elected parliament first sat that month.

Theoretically the current parliament could be extended longer, like the 1935 parliament was extended and extended again until the end of the Second World War, but that would require contentious primary legislation - and the government has run out of time to force legislation through the House of Lords. And, in any case, nobody is suggesting the government will try to seek to extend the current parliament before the end of its natural term.

So that theoretical and exceptional possibility will not happen: this parliament has less than twelve full months left, at most.

If the parliament goes on as long as possible then the next general election may be next year, in January 2025 - but that still means the current parliament is dissolved this year.

Political commentators aver that the current government will seek a general election in either May or in autumn this year. One pundit (I forget who) made a plausible case for the general election being on the same day as the May local elections, on the brutally realistic assumption that it will be harder for the ruling Conservative party to get its core vote out twice in a period of a few months. But we know that politicians are not rational, and so nobody knows.

In constitutional terms this lack of time makes the government fairly impotent in respect of any fundamental legal changes.

The only primary legislation the government can be confident it can get through both Houses of Parliament will be in one of three categories: (1) finance bills, as the House of Lords cannot delay tax legislation; (2) bills legislating for express manifesto commitments from 2019; and/or (3) uncontroversial legislation.

This constitutional reality also points to a May election, as the government can be pretty sure that any tax proposals in the March budget will be quickly translated into law.

The government, of course, can propose changes that do not require primary legislation: in certain areas they can issue statutory instruments under an existing Act of Parliament; it can do certain things under the royal prerogative or existing statutory powers; it can issue statutory and non-statutory guidance; and so on.

But such changes are weak beer constitutionally compared with primary legislation - not least that each legal change (or gimmick) can be challenged in the courts in a way that primary legislation cannot be.

The parameters of our constitutional arrangements therefore shape the politics of the next few months. There is not a lot a government can do controversially, of any magnitude, other than change tax law. And so no doubt that is what the government will do.

Of course, in other areas the government will threaten to do all sorts of things with non-statutory methods. And some of these threats may even have an existence beyond being briefed to the newspapers. But in respect of extinguishing any rights currently set out in primary legislation then the government has now ran out of time.

And this time next year, this parliament will not any longer even be in place.