I was given the honour of being a panellist (along with Baroness Butler-Sloss, Lord Young of Cookham and Professor Andrew Blick) at a Parliament Week schools event organised by Learn with the Lords and the Constitution Society on the theme of "20 years after the Constitutional Reform Act, where does sovereignty lie in the [...]
My report "Lessons for Prevent" was published on 16 July 2025. I was interviewed about the report at the time by Andrew Marr on LBC. As Independent Prevent Commissioner, the first (and interim) holder of that post, I was tasked by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper with reporting on the interactions with Prevent of Ali [...]
The phrase "rule of law" has been used, on average, more than three times on every parliamentary sitting day over the past 10 years. But what does it mean? Has the UK anything to learn from the definition of the phrase by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, or from the experience [...]
Many people are more learned than I am in European human rights law, and many others more thoroughly immersed in UK national security. But having spent significant time in each of those worlds over the past 30 years, including through my work as Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and as a practitioner in Strasbourg, [...]
I gave a lecture last night to the Statute Law Society on the subject of Writing a Constitution. Our constitution is sick (though its condition is chronic rather than acute); a written constitution is a realistic proposition, for which there are many precedents within the Westminster family; the public seems at least mildly favourable [...]
My independent Investigatory Powers Act review was announced on 17 January. I am conducting the review together with a small strap-cleared team comprising Natasha Barnes, barrister at 1 Crown Office Row John Davies, a member of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Technology Advisory Panel. The scope of my review is determined by: The Home [...]
"National Security and the Law" was the subject of this year's Birkenhead Lecture. It contains a description and assessment of the current state of our law on counter-terrorism, hostile state activity and surveillance - and on the vital court and oversight mechanisms that apply to it. The lecture was delivered at Gray's Inn on [...]
What use is the House of Lords? What contribution is made by peers with experience as lawyers and judges? How could the Lords be reformed, and does it make sense to speak of the intention of Parliament? I addressed these topics in a Middle Temple Treasurer's Lecture on 14 October. The full text is [...]
The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill raises serious concerns for legal certainty and - more fundamentally still - for the role of Parliament in law-making. An excellent and impartial introduction to the Bill is in this report from the House of Commons library.My initial thoughts on the delegated powers in the Bill [...]
This is my contribution to the consultation on the future siting of the House of Lords. Future site of the HL My theme is that four challenges - Covid-inspired virtual working, mounting public debt, negative public perceptions and uncertainty over the future size of the House - have resulted in a single great opportunity: to [...]
