Constitutional renewal bill

Rebuilding trust in our democratic and constitutional settlement by ensuring openness, transparency, and accountability by:

• completing the process of removing the hereditary principle from the second chamber; 
• providing for the disqualification of Peers convicted of a serious criminal offence;
• allowing Peers to resign;
• placing the Civil Service Code, recruitment into the Civil Service and the role of the Civil Service Commissioners on a statutory footing;
• creating a statutory basis for the Parliamentary scrutiny of Treaties, prior to their ratification;
• limiting the circumstances in which the Attorney General can intervene in cases and requiring her to publish a protocol on how the Attorney General would work with the Directors of the prosecution services that she oversees;
• removing the Prime Minister from involvement in all judicial appointments in England and Wales;
• repealing legislation that limits protests around Parliament;
• standardising the time limit within which legal action can be brought under the Human Rights Act across the UK.

The Government has already made significant reforms to the House of Lords and will bring forward further reform through the Constitutional Renewal Bill. To complete this final phase of reform, the Government will then set out proposals and publish a draft bill for a smaller and democratically constituted second chamber.

Bribery bill

Modernising the law on bribery to support the highest ethical standards across business and public life and to equip prosecutors and courts to deal effectively with bribery by:

• providing a new, modern and comprehensive scheme of bribery offences enabling a more effective response to bribery in the public and private sector, at home and abroad;
• enabling the courts to consider evidence from proceedings in Parliament in the event of a prosecution for bribery of a Member of Parliament or Peer;
• creating an offence of bribery of foreign public officials in order to obtain or retain business;
• creating a new corporate offence where a business fails to prevent bribery being committed by those working on its behalf;
• guaranteeing that foreign nationals who are resident in the UK are liable to prosecution for bribery committed abroad in the same way that UK nationals are already liable;
• removing the existing requirement for the consent of the Attorney General to a prosecution for bribery.
• The Government published its proposals for reform of bribery law in a draft bill on 25 March . Subject to views expressed by Parliament during the process of pre-legislative scrutiny up to the summer, the Government proposes to introduce the Bribery Bill to Parliament in the next session.
• The draft bill covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The reform of the law on bribery in Scotland is a matter devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

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