THE CURRENT LEGISLATIVE AND REGULATORY REFORM BILL
A Press Guide


THE TIMES:
In my nightmare, Tony Blair finally decides that he is fed-up with putting Bills before Parliament. He has so much to do and so little time. He decides to put a Bill to End All Bills before the Commons, one that gives him and his ministers power to introduce and amend any legislation in future without going through all those boring stages in Parliament…The new law is proposed and hardly anyone notices. Then the Bill to End All Bills is nodded through the Houses of Parliament, taking with it a few hundred years of Parliamentary democracy. I wake up, sweating. I am tossing and turning about a government Bill that was given its second reading in the House of Commons last week and is heading into committee. (Daniel Finkelstein, Feb 15th 2006)

THE GUARDIAN
A group of Cambridge University lawyers, led by professor John Spencer QC, has warned that the bill could potentially allow ministers to rewrite virtually any act of parliament, permitting them, for example, to abolish jury trial, put people under house arrest, rewrite immigration law or sack judges. (The Guardian 22.2.06)

DAILY MAIL
Ken Clarke, who is leading the Tories' democracy review, warned that in theory it would allow the Government to override the five-year limit on a Parliamentary term… this legislation gives them power to change laws at the stroke of a pen. (Daily Mail 23.2.06)

THE GUARDIAN
Some have called it the Henry VIII bill; one MP thought Stalin would be a more appropriate dictator to put his name to it. A leading academic refers to it as the "abolition of parliament bill". ..On the surface, the bill is aimed at removing regulatory burdens on business by using short-cut procedures which wouldn't require parliamentary debate. The same process would also put into law uncontroversial recommendations by Britain's law commissions, the government's legal thinktanks. All that seems not only reasonable, but positively helpful to the efficiency of law-making. But look again, and Henry VIII comes into the picture. What the government has inserted into the bill is a way of allowing laws to be passed by a minister's order, which bypasses parliament altogether. (Marcel Berlins, 15.2.06)

THE TELEGRAPH
Other commentators have been following my report on this page two weeks ago that the Government's Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill would give the Government so-called "Henry VIII powers" to amend primary legislation without Parliamentary debate. (23.6.06)

INDYMEDIA IRELAND
According to the Explanatory Notes that accompany the Bill, Ministers will be able to make orders that can ‘amend, repeal or replace legislation in any way that an Act of Parliament may do.’ Let’s go over the main points of that again. Ministers will be able to make orders amending, repealing or replacing any legislation. This includes ‘reforming’ or abolishing any body created by statute, including local authorities, the courts, private companies and, since its powers are defined by Acts of Parliament, even the House of Lords. Just think about all of that for a moment.

There are, of course, some restrictions but don’t imagine you’ll be able to take much comfort from them. Clause 5 of the Bill stipulates that Ministers cannot make an order which imposes or raises taxation unless the order is merely restating previous legislation. Clause 6 prohibits a Minister from creating a new offence that is punishable with more than two years in prison. Even here there are caveats, since Clause 6 (6a) states that this restriction does not apply if the provision ‘implements recommendations of any one or more of the United Kingdom Law Commissions.’ Clause 7 prohibits any order that allows search and seizure, forcible entry or compelling someone to give evidence unless, once again, the provision implements the recommendations of the Law Commissions.

The role of the Law Commissions deserves scrutiny. The Explanatory Notes make clear that a Ministerial order can make a provision ‘to implement Law Commission recommendations and to reform legislation where this goes wider than those recommendations’ (original emphasis). Furthermore, while the Notes claim that ‘an order cannot make provision amending, abolishing or codifying common law rules if this is not for the purpose of implementing a Law Commission recommendation’ they also state that a provision may implement those recommendations ‘in full or in part’ or ‘depart from the recommendations’ (my emphasis). Suspiciously vague? I think so.

There are also five preconditions set out in Clause 3 of the Bill, which a Minister must consider before making an order. These are:

That there are ‘no non-legislative solutions which will satisfactorily remedy the difficulty which the order is intended to address.’

‘[T]hat the effect of the provision made by the order is proportionate to its policy objective. This means that the Minister must consider that there is an appropriate relationship between the policy aim of the proposals and the means chosen to achieve them.’

‘[T]hat the provision made by the order, taken as a whole, strikes a fair balance between the public interest and the interests of the persons adversely affected by the order.’

‘[T]hat the provision made by the order does not remove any necessary protection… No order can be made unless the Minister is of the opinion that it would maintain any protections that the Minster considers to be necessary.’

‘[T]hat the provision made by the order will not prevent any person from continuing to exercise any right or freedom which he might reasonably expect to continue to exercise.’

And there you have it: these are the rigorous, precisely-worded rules which govern the Minister’s judgement. Before enacting any legislation, the Minister must ask himself some very serious and probing questions: am I being reasonable? Do I need to do this? Do I really have to legislate? Am I being careful not infringe anyone’s freedoms? These stringent and robust tests met, the Minister can then apply his rubber stamp.

Finally, by way of safeguards, the Government announced in January that there will be a ‘new super select committee’ that, according to the Telegraph, will ‘have the power to block the lawmaking efforts of all Whitehall departments.’ This Select Committee will, of course, have a Labour Chair (Andrew Miller) and will presumably be as robust and fearsome as all the others (Richard Tyler, ‘MPs ready to curb Whitehall powers’ in the Daily Telegraph January 12, 2006).

But (and allow me to slip, for a moment, into the finest tradition of TV shopping channels) there’s more: Buy this Bill and you don’t just get all of the above. Oh no. The Bill is also subject to its own provisions. In other words, once passed by Parliament, Ministers will be able to amend it, which includes removing the already pitiful limitations about two-year sentences and taxation.

END

What you can do:
Contact your MP/send them the above via www.writetothem.com

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