Sweeping changes

London, July 2: Gordon Brown will this week propose surrendering historic powers delegated to previous Prime Ministers by the monarch as part of a wide-ranging programme of constitutional reform.

The reforms are expected to involve Brown giving up royal prerogatives traditionally exercised by the Prime Minister, such as the power to declare war without parliamentary approval or to appoint bishops to the Church of England.

The House of Commons will be given new powers, including the right for MPs to recall Parliament during a recess if there is a national emergency, to hold American-style confirmation hearings for appointees to key public posts and to ratify international treaties.

In the longer term, Brown is considering a British Bill of Rights, enshrining the civil liberties of citizens currently set out in the Human Rights Act and European Convention on Human Rights, to give a greater sense of what it means to be a British citizen.

While this week’s statement will not cover the issue of voting reform, Brown said that a paper on the electoral system would be published at a later stage.

It could include an examination of moving to an alternative vote system — instead of the first-past-the-post system for Westminster elections. The measures are intended to restore “trust” in politics after the by-passing of Parliament and the cabinet, as well as the culture of spin and media manipulation, that characterised the Blair decade.

Brown hopes that the ambitious nature of the reforms will be compared to his decision on becoming Chancellor in 1997 to hand over power to set interest rates to an independent Bank of England.