Poll: Labour constitutional reforms receive majority backing with SNP voters most likely to support

Almost all of Labour’s major planned constitutional reforms are backed by voters, but the party still has work to do to ensure people are aware of the plans, a new poll has found.

The main proposal, to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a senate of nations and regions, received the most backing by the public in the Savanta survey, but just a third (32 per cent) say they are aware of the proposals at all, which are intended to be Labour’s attempt to save the Union.

The SNP’s voters are the most likely to back the individual proposals.

The poll, undertaken by Savanta for The Scotsman, interviewed 1,048 Scottish adults aged 16 or over online between December 16 and 21.

Early this month Sir Keir Starmer vowed to “unbind” Britain from a centre that had “not delivered” as he unveiled Labour’s blueprint for political and economic devolution. The commission, spearheaded by former prime minister Gordon Brown, took more than two years to report its conclusions.

Mr Brown said his commission on the UK’s future was proposing “the biggest transfer of power out of Westminster and Whitehall” that “our country has seen” when it launched, including the identification of 288 “new economic clusters”. Two hundred of these were outside London, capable of creating tens of thousands of high-paying jobs, the report claimed.

The report also suggests giving local communities new powers over skills, transport, planning and culture to drive growth, and replacing the House of Lords with a new democratic assembly of nations and regions.

Sir Keir said Labour would aim to abolish the “indefensible” upper chamber “as quickly as possible”, ideally within its first term. But he did not commit to a timeframe for the move, stressing discussions were pending on when “exactly” it would come to pass. The rest of the proposals will be consulted upon before being brought forward.

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer (left) and Anas Sarwar, leader of the Scottish Labour Party, during a visit to the Stalks & Stem store, a small business in Shawlands, Glasgow. Picture date: Friday December 2, 2022.

However, just 6 per cent of Scots state they are “very aware” of the plans, with a further 26 per cent stating they are “quite aware”. Labour voters were most likely to be the most aware of the plans, followed by SNP voters.

Two thirds (62 per cent) overall said they were not aware of the plans, with that including almost a quarter of all voters (24 per cent) saying they were not aware at all of the proposals from Labour. A further 38 per cent said they were “not that aware”, with 6 per cent stating they did not know.

However, when voters were provided with the headline reforms relating to Scotland, they tended to back the plans.

Abolition of the House of Lords is supported by 60 per cent of Scots, with just one in ten opposing the plans. A consultation on additional financial powers for the Scottish Parliament was also backed by more than half of voters (58 per cent), with 19 per cent opposing the plans.

However, while a plurality of voters back Holyrood gaining some limited powers over foreign affairs (47 per cent) and support the creation of an institution that would block the UK Government legislating on devolved areas without the consent of the Scottish Parliament (46 per cent), these were more likely to be opposed (25 per cent and 22 per cent respectively) or see voters have no opinion or saying they didn’t know (28 per cent and 32 per cent respectively).

The plans could also bring SNP voters onside, the poll indicates, with that group being the most likely to back the proposals – more so than Labour’s own voters.

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