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FORUM - Opinion in the CNJ
 


Democracy in danger

New laws are going to hand direct rules to ministers, warns Chris Moncrieff

THERE is a measure plodding its way through Parliament at the moment with a title so innocuous sounding that you would be tempted to move on, without further scrutiny, to something more appealing. But the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill is not what it seems. It sounds innocent. But it is dynamite, and it is monstrous.
Indeed it is so explosive in its content that it is seen as seriously undermining and damaging our unwritten constitution.
It has been dubbed by opponents as the Abolition of Parliament Bill. It could enable the government virtually to ignore the House of Commons altogether.
Do not allow yourself to be lulled into complacency by the honeyed-words of Labour ministers and their spin-doctors. They will try to tell you that it is merely a measure of convenience enabling the government of the day to cut parliamentary red tape quickly and to ensure that our laws are compatible with human rights legislation.
With the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, ministers are trying to lull us all into complacency, saying we are getting worked up for no reason whatsoever. But listen to the words of Kenneth Clarke, the former Tory Chancellor, and a man not given to exaggeration: “They have produced a Bill which could be used to sweep away Parliamentary procedure and debate on an astonishing scale.”
The Bill, if it becomes law, will reduce Parliament to a mere voting machine, or something even worse, a rubber-stamping machine. It will enable measures to go through without a syllable of debate, permitting sweeping and widespread legal changes without so much as a single word uttered in the House of Commons. And worst of all, it could allow a government to remain in power for years on end, thus avoiding the inconvenience of a general election to keep them in office or to boot them out.
These are massive issues, on a scale that Parliament has not seen before. But we are being told that we are getting hysterical about something which is as harmless as a spring lamb. Calm down! they implore us. Don’t worry!
These draconian powers will not be invoked, they assure us, on controversial issues. Well, you can take that with a pinch of salt. Who is to define what is controversial and what is not? If this government is regarded as benign, and will stick to its word – an arguable statement in itself – what about its successors, who might be tyrannical?
Are they going to feel bound to adhere to these assurances? Of course they will not. But more immediately to the point, can we even trust the present government to keep its word? I am afraid to say that it would be a foolish man who answered “yes” to that question.
The spin and sheer deceit of politicians over the last decade or so should have made us all sceptical of the worth of their soothing words and glib promises. For once the Tories and the Liberal Democrats are at one in their disquiet about this measure.
For the Liberal Democrats, David Heath has complained about the “laxity” of definition of the terms used in the Bill. He said: “The provisions give an astonishing degree of power to the Minister of the day.” And he makes the point that future ministers may not be so engaging or benign as the present bunch. Parliament is already under assault from the European Union whose torrents of directives and regulations are, in the eyes of Eurosceptics, reducing Westminster to the status of a county council.
Jim Murphy, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Cabinet Office, who is helping to pilot this measure along its bumpy passage through Parliament, says that the Bill “is not intended to reflect far-reaching constitutional changes.”
Don’t you believe a word of it.

• Chris Moncrieff is a veteran political journalist who has worked for the Press Association. He has been at Westminster longer than any MP now sitting in the House.
 
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