Constitution Committee
2 September 2026
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Constitution Committee House of Lords
00:05 - 01:41
Speaker 3
Welcome to this meeting of the House of Lords Constitution Committee. Today we are holding the second evidence session of the committee's new inquiry into the UK's constitutional safeguards. And we're delighted to be joined by Lord O'Donnell, former Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service. Lord O'Donnell, welcome back to the committee. You are very welcome.
And I look forward to hearing what you have to say. I just want to remind members to declare any interest relevant to this inquiry or for today's meeting on the first time they speak. I've no relevant interests of my own to declare. So we will now begin. Lord O'Donnell, you held the post a relatively long time ago, which gives you, I think, a good deal of perspective on how it has developed, how governments have worked with Cabinet Secretaries, including yourself.
And our first question is on the threats to the constitution and how you assess the constitutional safeguards in the UK, how effective they are, and where are their most significant weaknesses, and what should we do about them? I know it's a very broad question, but I think different members of the committee will come in at different times to give you time to expand on the subject, Gus.
01:41 - 02:19
Speaker 5
Sure, thank you. And first of all, can I just say I'm delighted the committee are looking at this subject because I think it's incredibly important. If you think about what a government's really for, to my mind they're about improving the well-being of the citizens of the nation, their life satisfaction. If you look at those countries with very high life satisfaction and you look at the Economist Intelligence Unit index of democracy, there's a massive overlap, right? Six of the six countries, they're the Scandis, do incredibly well in both indices.
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