Abolition of Parliament bill is back...

Remember the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill or the Abolition of Parliament bill as it was affectionately known? If you don’t I covered it 8 months ago here.

I thought it had all died down but apparently it hasn’t. It is now in its final stages in the Lords and it is worse than ever.

The bill will drastically reduce parliamentary discussion of future laws. The bill gives ministers power to alter any law passed by Parliament.

Instead of a full day’s debate on the principle of the proposal, detailed line-by-line examination in committee, a second chance at specific amendment in the Commons and a final debate and vote, ministers will have to face at most a short debate in a committee and a one-and-a-half hour debate on the floor. Frequently the Government will face less than that. No amendments will be allowed. The legislative process will be reduced to a game of take-it-or-leave-it.

Any body created by statute, including local authorities, the courts and even companies, might find themselves reorganised or even abolished. Since the powers of the House of Lords are defined in Acts of Parliament, even they are subject to the Bill.

Carrying ID cards could be made compulsory, smoking in one’s own home could be outlawed and the definition of terrorism altered to make ordinary political protest punishable by life imprisonment. Nor will the Human Rights Act save us since the Bill makes no exception for it.

The Bill, bizarrely, even applies to itself, so that ministers could propose orders to remove the limitations about two-year sentences and taxation.

Yesterday the House of Lords voted to make the Bill safer, and lost, by just 13 votes.

There'll be a final vote this Thursday.

Dark Heretic has something on how we can stop it here