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Letters to the Editor

The Times February 23, 2006

Legislative reform Bill grants powers too great for government
Sir, Francis Bennion is right to draw attention in his letter to the failure — of successive governments — to bring forward legislation to implement sensible law reforms recommended by the Law Commission. What needs to be recognised, however, is that the “difficulty in obtaining a place in the legislative programme for its reform Bills” is largely due to to the preference of governments (especially the present one) to introduce “popular” measures, frequently under the mantra of “modernisation” but which do little to effect real change.

It is not only the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (Comment, Feb 21; letters, Feb 16 and 20) that demonstrates an arrogance on the part of government to bypass or railroad Parliament. Tony Blair sought to justify, in Prime Minister’s Questions last week, restoring an offence of “glorifying terrorism” to the Terrorism Bill on the basis that “if we remove any reference to glorification from the Bill, people outside will infer that we have decided to dilute our law at the very moment when we should strengthen it” and that “by weakening our law on terrorism at this time from what was proposed, we would send the wrong signal to the whole of the outside world”.

Does this mean that if the Government proposes a new law, however ill-judged or authoritarian, it is the moral duty of Parliament to support it for fear of the “wrong signal” it would send to do otherwise? Thankfully, the proposed 90-day detention law was struck down, but there is a continuing need for our MPs to remember that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

DAVID J. LAMMING
Groton, Suffolk

Sir, The Government has assured us that the very wide powers to be given to ministers by the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill to legislate by means of statutory instrument will not be used for controversial matters.

It is worth remembering that when the European Communities Act was passed, the then Solicitor-General told Parliament on July 13, 1972, that the similar powers in section 2(2) of that Act would be used for “consequential amendments of a small, minor and insignificant kind”. However, those powers are used to make fundamental changes in our law, involving important policy choices, without recourse to an Act of Parliament. A recent example is the intended implementation by regulation of the EC directive on age discrimination. Despite that this directive leaves a wide discretion to member states, the exercise of which will affect society at large and millions of people personally, the directive is being implemented by regulation.

What the use of section 2(2) of the European Communities Act shows is that any government, faced with the difficulty of finding enough Parliamentary time to get its legislation through, will inevitably choose other quicker routes when they are available. As Lord Justice Jacob said in the recent case of Oakley v Animal, no one can seriously suggest that the scrutiny Parliament gives to statutory instruments is as profound as that given to an Act of Parliament.

Whatever the Government’s good intentions, therefore, it is difficult to have much confidence that the powers the Government now wants to take will not be used to make fundamental changes that should be properly debated in Parliament.

SIR JEREMY LEVER, QC
GEORGE PERETZ
London WC1