This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion of the disconnection between constitutional and regulatory scholarship. Not only was regulation often studied through highly technical or specific analyses of particular policies, the concept of ‘the regulatory state’, of which so much has been heard in recent times in political science, was more notable by its absence in mainstream studies of UK constitutional development. The chapter then discusses the UK as a ‘regulatory laboratory’, as evidenced by the experimentation with a wide range of institutional designs and modalities shaped...

This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion of the disconnection between constitutional and regulatory scholarship. Not only was regulation often studied through highly technical or specific analyses of particular policies, the concept of ‘the regulatory state’, of which so much has been heard in recent times in political science, was more notable by its absence in mainstream studies of UK constitutional development. The chapter then discusses the UK as a ‘regulatory laboratory’, as evidenced by the experimentation with a wide range of institutional designs and modalities shaped by exploiting, and sometimes recasting, constitutional understanding and practice over the last three decades. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.