Too Many Laws, Too Much Fear?
About 4,000 new laws have entered the statute book in the lifetime of this parliament…
And over the course of the decade to 2007 when Tony Blair left office, each year saw an average of 2,685 new laws – the equivalent of almost seven and a half a day or one every three-and-a-quarter hours – according to legal information providers Sweet & Maxwell. That is a 22% increase over the average for the preceeding ten years – and it’s not just Labour, the figures were on the up pre ‘97.
For ease of passage, most of those were brought in via statutory instrument rather than as new bills. And the figures don’t even include European laws.
All of which has been great for certain classes of lawyer of course. Criminals and employers bore the brunt of the legislative tidal wave and claims management companies ambulance chasers have proliferated massively in the last decade.
But not everyone is pleased about our passage to legislation nirvana where every breath and movement is regulated by statute.
One Bishop has warned that it has created a a “victim society” and a “blame culture”. In the Daily Telegraph Rt Rev Peter Price, Bishop of Bath and Wells suggests that individual rights have increased whilst equivalent responsibility has decreased.
DT: “The effect of many of these new laws is to place responsibility for cleaning up the mess of society upon educationalists, doctors and health workers, social services, the police and other institutions and structure.
Paradoxically, legislation on the rights of the individual has increased, leading to something of a victim society, as well as a blame culture.”
Whether or not you sign up to any particular religious doctrine, he has got a point. The way forward? Post May 6, expect new laws to clean up the old ones.
