Sunday 5 March 2006, Harrogate

"The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill" - you can almost hear Sir Humphrey saying, "Call it something boring and they won't notice what it really says".
And why should they? After all, it is merely an update to the 2001 Act of the same name, which didn't seem to do any harm. And its purpose is to reform outdated legislation and regulation - something all parties, including our own, support.
Well, it might have worked ... if one of our MPs and some Cambridge academics hadn't warned us what the Bill really does.

It allows ministers to amend or replace any law or regulation passed by Parliament. Including itself.

There are safeguards. No new crime can be created - if the penalty for it is over 2 years in prison. And it cannot increase taxation. Any new order must be "proportionate" - "as it appears to the minister". The minister must consult - "as he considers appropriate".
Then the ministerial order will be laid before Parliament - though if appropriate this may use the "Negative Resolution Procedure" whereby the order becomes the law if Parliament does not explicitly reject it within 40 days. (You can imagine how easily something could slip though when Parliament happens to be very busy with other business.)
So guess who decides which process is appropriate, which orders need only negative resolution and which need a positive vote? Why, it's the minister again. Isn't he clever?
As the Bill would allow the minister to alter itself, even those safeguards could be swept away.
Maybe the Government only wants this Bill so they can tidy up old regulation without wasting Parliamentary time. Maybe that's how it will start. But this Bill would allow the Government, for example, to

• Introduce a penalty of a year in prison for anyone who does not carry an ID Card, even if Parliament had voted for ID cards to be entirely voluntary;
  
• Do away with trial by jury even though Parliament has recently voted to keep it;
  
• Re-instate any parts of the current Education Bill that Parliament might choose to throw out;
  
• Respond to a judge who rules that the law does not allow the minister to do something - as has happened several times recently - by changing the law and saying "NOW it does!".

Do these people not care about the 800 year development of our democracy, from the Magna Carta to the Human Rights Act? Do they not remember that the Civil War was fought, and a king beheaded, over the right of Parliament, not the Executive, to make the law of the land?
Have they even forgotten what happened in the twentieth century, when individual leaders were given total power and war swept across Europe and the world, with tens of millions killed before the war was won for democracy?
Or do they think that democracy is simply too inefficient for the twenty-first century?
They may think that; we could not possibly agree.
We know our 63 MPs will oppose this Bill root and branch, as will their colleagues in the Lords. Now we call on parliamentarians of all parties and both Houses to defend the supremacy of Parliament, and throw out this affront to British democracy!
Conference, I move this motion, and call upon you to pass it with acclamation.