Parliament and the Law is, in essence, a sequel to The Law and Parliament, published as part of Butterworth's ‘Law in Context’ series in 1998, and edited by Dawn Oliver and Gavin Drewry. Oliver and Drewry return, now joined by Alexander Horne, as editors of this new collection of essays published by Hart, which seeks to assess the relationships between the UK Parliament and the law in a range of different contexts. As with its predecessor, this new book is a multidisciplinary work with a broad ambition: combining insights from lawyers, both academic and practising, political scientists, officials, and parliamentary insiders to assess how the activity of Parliament is affected and conditioned by law, in addition to how such activity itself affects and conditions the law. Yet much has changed in the UK constitution between 1998 and 2013, and the contributions to Parliament and the Law are significantly informed by the era of constitutional reform which the UK has recently experienced. In that sense, the book is welcome, appearing at an opportune moment to reappraise many of the specific issues and broader themes examined in its forerunner.

Divided into three parts, the first considers questions of parliamentary privilege and the conduct of members – issues which rose to prominence in light of the expenses scandal which erupted in 2009. In chapter 1, ‘Privilege, Exclusive Cognisance and the Law’, Liam Laurence Smith provides a thorough overview of the privileges of the House of Commons (including an enjoyable passage considering examples of the use of the ‘Chiltern Hundreds' to facilitate resignation as an MP). Chapter 2, by Oonagh Gay and Hugh Tomlinson QC, focuses in particular on issues of freedom of speech, and highlights the strain which the increasing importance of select committee reports, and the constituency work of MPs, may place on the narrow scope of the protection offered by Article 9 of the Bill of Rights. Issues of privilege and the criminal law are the subject of Sally Lipscombe and Alexander Horne's essay in chapter 3, with detailed attention given to two recent controversies: the search of the office of Damian Green on the Parliamentary Estate by police, without a search warrant, in 2008, and claims – rejected by the Supreme Court in Chaytor [2010] UKSC 52 – that parliamentary privilege would be infringed by the prosecution of members for the submission of fraudulent expenses claims. Finally, in chapter 4, the law and conduct of MPs are examined by Richard Kelly and Matthew Hamlyn, who use a series of examples to demonstrate how shifts in this area away from self-regulation have been largely scandal-driven.

The second part of the book looks at the internal arrangements of Parliament. Andrew Kennon's chapter 5 discusses the provision to Parliament of legal advice, the need for which is shown to be varied and growing. In chapter 6, Ben Worthy explores the application of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to Parliament, yielding the interesting conclusion that, while transparency has been increased, the most significant barrier to even greater openness has been the legislature's internal culture, rather than the formal constitutional precept of parliamentary privilege. Chapter 7 deals with the powers and functions of select committees. Here, Richard Kelly notes that such committees display characteristics which contrast with those of the legislature in which they are located – notably being dominated by backbenchers, largely outside the sphere of influence of party whips, and aiming to use inquisitorial procedures to produce reports agreed on a unanimous basis – yet that the absence of powers of compulsion may prove problematic if their oversight remit expands further to encompass the private sector. In chapter 8, John McEldowney considers the impact of devolution on the UK Parliament, surveying issues across Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, while also confronting the English question. With respect to the latter, the analysis of the complex recommendations of the McKay Commission (2013) is welcome, with McEldowney's conclusion that this would leave unresolved the underlying issues for the post-devolution Westminster Parliament surely indicating that such proposals do not offer a fruitful way forward.

The third and final part of the book deals with by far the broadest topic(s): rights, the constitution, and the legal system. Murray Hunt's essay in chapter 9 considers the work of the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR), noting the increasing prominence of the JCHR's reports in parliamentary debates, and an increase in human rights literacy among members as a result of this work. In chapter 10, Alexander Horne and Lucinda Maer review the contemporary debate on replacement of the Human Rights Act 1998 with some form of Bill of Rights and, while recognising that the report of the coalition's Commission on a Bill of Rights (2012) was fundamentally inconclusive, they are prepared to accentuate the positive in acknowledging its value as a resource for future policy makers. Andrew Le Sueur and Jack Simson Caird's contribution, in chapter 11, offers an insightful discussion of the work of the House of Lords Constitution Committee, concluding that the success of the committee is based on the way it mixes law and politics as an interpreter and articulator of British constitutional principle, rendering it in some respects comparable to a legally established constitutional council or court.

In chapter 12, Dawn Oliver sets out a pragmatic defence of parliamentary sovereignty, which recognises the existence of a range of largely effective, non-judicial constraints on the abuse of legislative authority, and the sustained institutional comity which the courts' respect for Parliament (and vice versa) generates. In this sense, Oliver's pragmatic defence is also principled: the desirability of maintaining a settled foundation for constitutional order, and the authority of the courts within that system, provides the judges with a good reason to avoid the outright confrontation with Parliament that assertion and attempted use of a ‘strike down’ power might generate. There is much to be said for such a defence of parliamentary sovereignty, yet to my mind Oliver is too quick to reject the democratic justification of the doctrine which many believe to operate in parallel with the more pragmatic considerations rightly highlighted here. Certainly, to argue that the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty is legitimate, as a constitutional foundation, because it serves to ensure democratic decision making is not subject to substantive legal limitations does not entail that we are committed to regard as justified any discriminatory legislation which is the outcome of that process. Indeed, if Oliver's argument were accepted, no constitutional decision-making process could ever have pretensions to political legitimacy, for the hypothetical possibility of such discriminatory legislation can never be excluded.

Finally, the accountability of the justice system to Parliament is the topic of Gavin Drewry's chapter 13, which charts the developments in this area in the context of the normalisation of the administration of justice – bringing its organisation and management into line with that of other key public services – the changes to the leadership of the judiciary post-Constitutional Reform Act 2005, and the increasing political significance of the power wielded by judges in the UK. While Drewry argues that there is now much greater transparency, with judicial independence far from sacrificed to achieve this, he concludes that such improvement is in part simply a consequence of the deficiency of the prior system – accountability for the administration of justice has been raised to the same inadequate level as is applicable to the majority of government activity.

The breadth of this book is readily apparent, and the detail highly impressive – Parliament and the Law will be a very valuable resource for academics, officials, practitioners, and others keen to understand the intricate nature of the issues here covered. The frequent use of case studies throughout is engaging, and also useful to allow the reader to draw links between the overlapping challenges often presented by contemporary political and constitutional developments. The parliamentary expenses scandal is a particularly good example of this, the influence of which can be traced across many chapters of the book. It is also a model edited collection, in the sense that there is a clear theme and, indeed, a set of sub-themes, which run through the chapters, and the three parts of the book. Featuring prominently among these sub-themes are: the changing nature of the UK constitution; the eccentricity of some of the archaic arrangements which nevertheless persist; the mixed consequences of proactive political reform; and the intermingling of law and politics. All of these themes build effectively throughout, enhancing the clear picture established of the present state of the overarching relationship(s) between Parliament and the law. This gives the book a real sense of unity and coherence which is not always achieved by such sets of essays, and for which the editors deserve much credit.

In a sense, however, the clarity with which these themes emerge creates a problem for the sceptical reader, who might be left feeling slightly unsatisfied by Parliament and the Law in one respect: rather than engaged with directly, the underlying themes of the book are hinted at, with their broader implications for the present position of the UK constitution left largely unexplored. Hunt suggests that what might be emerging is ‘hybrid of political and legal constitutionalism’ (p. 248), an idea similarly employed by Le Sueur and Simson Caird in relation to the House of Lords Constitution Committee: ‘… the Committee has come to occupy territory between the contested lines of political and legal constitutionalism’ (p. 282), and may represent ‘a third way between these two models of constitutionalism’ (p. 283). These are interesting claims, which might be of great importance for the study of the UK constitution in general and, at the least, deserving of further analysis.

Perhaps crucially, we might wonder, what are the normative implications of embracing this ‘third way’, if that is what has been generated? If the notions of political and legal constitutionalism are to be deployed as a useful framing device, they cannot simply be treated as absolute descriptive positions which are transcended by constitutional innovations which combine law and politics in new ways, for this is to suppress the normative instincts at the root of these positions, which are ultimately about what should be afforded ultimate constitutional priority – law or politics – in light of the fact that they are inherently interrelated, and neither can (or should) ever be excluded. The difficulty with seeing this, in Hunt's words, as an ‘old dichotomy’ which has given way to a ‘more sophisticated form of modern constitutionalism’ (p. 249) is that debate as to what democracy, the rule of law, or any other political value reflected in these models ought to require of a constitution gets smothered by a pragmatic acceptance that all progress must be for the best. In a relatively settled constitutional system, this might not matter a great deal but in the UK, where the contemporary constitution is, in some respects, changing at a furious pace – with further change likely to be forthcoming, as nearly every chapter in this book concludes by anticipating – we must think critically about what new paradigm is taking shape, if indeed it is a new paradigm at all. Otherwise, if pragmatism reigns supreme, detached from, or – as in Oliver's account of parliamentary sovereignty – even replacing considerations of substantive political, legal, and constitutional value, the constitution we end up with may be worse than the one we started with.

Of course, to assess the implications of change and attempt to plot, and even steer, a future constitutional trajectory, we must have a clear sense of what has occurred. This is something which, in relation to the broad range of issues covered, can definitively be obtained from Parliament and the Law. In this sense, the book provides a valuable vantage point from which all those concerned about the effectiveness of Parliament's impact on the law, and the law's increasing impact on the activity of Parliament, can consider where we might go next.