liadnan

The Government has backed down, to some extent, on the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (latest version of the Bill currently here.

I haven't had a chance to go through it in detail as yet, so I'm unsure whether the amendments, available here (.pdf) cover all the concerns, but the crucial point would appear to be that the Bill will grant the powers only for the purpose of removing burdens, administering regulatory powers, or implementing proposals of the Law Commissions. (The latter two points weren't referred to in the news reports I've seen, but are still there in the amendments, and the last point about Law Commission reports still says "with or without amendments": while I can certainly see a reasonable argument for pushing through LC Bills as they stand, since they go through a very long consultative process before reaching the legislative stage, the point seems less strong if they're going to be amended.

The noxious Jim Murphy's line on Today was "well, this is of course what we always meant." Which rather invites the questions: "why didn't you draft it that way in the first place then, and why did you reject all previous proposals to do just this?"