Statute Law Balancing (Limit on Maximum Quantity) (Hansard, 4 February 1997)

§ Mr. Anthony Steen (South Hams)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to oblige Ministers of the Crown, when proposing either to implement any proposal under the European Community Treaties for legislation by the Council of Ministers or to introduce any bill or statutory instrument, simultaneously to propose the repeal of at least a similar quantity of existing legislation to that which they propose to implement or to introduce. The Bill seeks to halt the growth in the number of pages of statute law. The idea is nothing new. It comes from ancient Greece. In his play "The Frogs", Aristophanes tells how Dionysius, overcome by the plight of Athens, ventured to Hades to find a poet best suited to save the city. He was asked to judge a contest between Euripides and Aeschylus using a giant set of scales to weigh up the qualitative pros and cons of each line of poetry. Two and half thousand years later, we use an equivalent test every day. Cost-benefit analysis has become a common tool of government, and the extension of compliance cost assessments has made the weighing-up process easier and more precise.

Today, we consider only the qualitative aspect of legislation—what we do in the Chamber. No one gives a thought to the total quantity of law that has been passed. Since 1979, we have produced 220,000 pages of additional legislation. In the 235 years between 1715 and 1950, we passed 298 volumes of Acts of Parliament. In just 45 years since 1950, we have added a further 112 volumes of legislation.

I wonder whether we would have fared just a little better if less legislation had been passed, as it often damages competitiveness, affects our enterprise culture and restricts individual freedoms. It is therefore not a moment too soon to find a way in which to halt the never-ending expansion of the statute book.

Some people will argue that we live in an increasingly complex society, and that it is inevitable that there will be more and more legislation. Others say that the harmonisation of Europe has resulted in more European directives, but many of those new laws are unnecessary, and dozens already on the statute book have lost their importance and relevance.

The Government have valiantly tried to do something about the problem by attempting to push back the insidious growth of statute law, but even their deregulation initiative has run into problems, what with the laborious process of passing deregulation orders via a Select Committee and of trying to push Brussels to repeal outmoded directives originating there. Some success can be claimed in limiting the cost of the implementation of new directives in Britain, but gold plating still lurks in some Ministries. Unlike King Canute, Ministers with responsibility for deregulation have temporarily stemmed the tide, but they have been unable to reverse it.

I seek leave to introduce the Bill because we can reverse the tide. One way is to cut the time that the House sits. There is clearly a correlation between the amount of time we spend in Parliament and the amount of law we churn out. If we sat less, inevitably we would pass fewer laws. In 1950, we sat for just over four months; by 1995, we were sitting for more than 805 five months. Perhaps the Jopling reforms will prove a blessing in disguise by reducing the number of hours that the House sits, and thereby providing fewer opportunities to pass laws.

There is a second way: to use sunset clauses, which automatically lapse unless reinstated. However, the simplest approach, which I favour, is to place a limit on the total weight of the law. I take 1 January 1997 as my baseline. If a new Bill is passed by Parliament, an Act of equivalent weight or a mixture of Acts and statutory instruments must be repealed. Unless that is done, the new Bill would automatically come to a halt, and would not receive its First Reading. That is the most effective way to curb the growth of unnecessary and unwanted legislation.

The approach is well illustrated by Sir Edward Marsh, Sir Winston Churchill's private secretary, who had many paintings. When the walls of his flat were full, he hit upon a simple solution—that he would buy another painting only if he could sell or give away a painting from his existing collection. That is what we must do with our stock of legislation, and my test is not wall space but weight.

Any hon. Member proposing to introduce a Bill must first identify statutes of equal weight to be repealed, and I suggest that the judge could be the Deputy Prime Minister. He would sit at his desk with a set of scales that had been issued by the Clerk of Works. A Minister who wanted new legislation would have to appear before the Deputy Prime Minister with his new Bill and those that he wished to repeal. Only if the scales balanced would the new Bill be eligible for qualitative merit tests in the House.

Clearly, the quantitative test would call for a radical change in the culture of Westminster and Whitehall, since the whole raison d'etre of the civil service is to create new laws, introduce new regulations and enforce new rules rather than wade through existing legislation to see what can be thrown out. Balancing old legislation against new is simple, and that simplicity should commend itself to the House.

Passing laws has always been seen by all hon. Members as a panacea for all ills. When new problems come to light, the cry goes up, "Pass a law," in the belief that a solution will automatically follow. Often, that is not the 806 case; and changing the law makes for other problems. If leave is granted to bring in the Bill, we shall have to adjust our approach. Even a private Member's Bill could be introduced only if existing private Members' or private legislation of the equivalent weight balanced it on the Deputy Prime Minister's scales. Knee-jerk reactions to local or national tragedies would no longer qualify on their own unless existing laws could be found to cancel them.

As things are, we are just piling new laws on top of old, similar to the layers of history that are exposed in an archaeological dig. The Bill would result in wider implications being considered when legislation is proposed. Of course worthwhile and important Bills could still go through Parliament, but with the added bonus of cutting out the dead wood on the statute book at the same time.

I seek leave in a somewhat light-hearted vein to underline a serious point. I used the weighing process as a metaphor to highlight a situation which few Members realise exists. As I have said, there have been 220,000 pages of additional legislation since 1970. Red tape, bureaucracy and over-regulation are long-term threats to our nation's competitiveness and they restrict our individual freedoms. We must be much more vigilant and more vigorous in tackling this issue.