ABSTRACT
In Part I, the nature of constitutions in general is considered and the UK constitution is placed in this context. The impact of the Blair government’s extensive programme of constitutional reform upon traditional ways of examining the UK’s uncodified constitution will also be touched on. These reforms constitute by far the greatest change to the UK constitution in the 20th century. The most important parts of that package are: the incorporation into domestic law of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) (see Part II Chapter 2) by the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) (see Part VI Chapter 1); devolution to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland (considered in this Chapter) and London (further English devolution in the form of directly elected Regional Assemblies is promised); reform of the House of Lords (of which only stage onethe removal of most of the hereditary peers and the rebalancing of party numbers in the House-has been completed) (see Part III Chapter 2); the Freedom of Information Act 2000.1 The other chapters in Part I concentrate on five aspects of the British constitution: its unusually heavy reliance on constitutional conventions; the rule of law; the separation of powers; parliamentary sovereignty. To an extent, therefore, this first chapter serves to introduce themes examined in more detail in subsequent chapters.
