wanted: your views on delegated legislation

clansmanchrisThu 21/06/07 21:11

I thought you would be interested to know that I have recently been appointed to the UK Independence Party's Constitutional Affairs Policy Committee. The Committee is chaired by David Campbell-Bannerman [DCB], a Former Conservative Member of Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, who was Special Adviser to Former Tunbridge Wells MP, Sir Patrick (now Lord) Mayhew QC, when Paddy was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and my much-loved mentor Jim (now Lord) Molyneaux was Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party.

At the inaugural meeting of the Committee, I reminded DCB – who is now Deputy Leader of UKIP and Head of Policy – that, as a Former Constituency Young Conservative Chairman, I 'did an Enoch' on him when he contested Glasgow Rutherglen for the Conservative Party in 1997, by urging friends of mine in Rutherglen to 'Vote Labour' in support for their sitting Labour MP Tommy McAvoy, on account of McAvoy being arguably more unionist than him!!! I'm pleased to say that DCB hasn't held it against me – or perhaps he has – as the Committee are in the process of drafting a policy paper on 'How We Are Governed' and DCB has asked me to contribute the section on delegated/secondary legislation, i.e., the whole nonsense of legislating by non-amendable Statutory Instruments (otherwise known as Orders-in-Council), which is a throwback to when Jim Molyneaux and I would protest at HMG's decision to legislate for Northern Ireland by Orders-in-Council rather than by (amendable) Bill in the United Kingdom Parliament.

DCB and I have jokingly said we should publish our joint memoirs revealing the extent to which Mayhew shared confidence in him during his time as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and to which Jim Molyneaux shared confidence in me during his time as UUP Leader, and the part we both played in the unravelling process of events in Northern Ireland!!! DCB has further admitted that he was given the thankless task of drafting replies to my numerous letters to Paddy protesting at his pronouncements when he was at the Northern Ireland Office prior to Paddy topping & tailing them and posting them to me. The last time I saw Paddy – at the AGM of Tunbridge Wells Constitutional Club (of which he is President and I remain a Member) was on the night that Ian Paisley naively agreed to share power with Martin McGuinness when he said to me 'I expect you're as opposed as ever to the whole affair'. 'Of course my dear Paddy' I replied, 'the Jim Molyneaux in me never wanted legislative devolution and/or power-sharing at the best of times, let alone with Sinn Fein'!!! Paddy replied he was speaking with Jim a few days earlier in the House of Lords and I told him – as I repeated to DCB at the inaugural meeting of UKIP's Constitutional Affairs Policy Committee – that now he has been released from the erroneous and dangerous gaol of the Northern Ireland Office, he is now free to proclaim the Molyneaux Agenda which, in stark contrast to that of the NIO, aims to secure the restoration of lasting constitutional stability and accountable democracy in Northern Ireland!!!

To cut a long story short, I am still working on drafting my Briefing Notes on Secondary Legislation for the 'How We Are Governed' paper for the UK Independence Party's Constitutional Affairs Policy Committee; it's not an arduous subject but, equally, it is not the most exciting, so I have allowed myself to be side-tracked into completing the paper I began writing sometime ago on 'The State Of The Union'. If you wish to receive a copy, please send your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address to me at clansmanchris2002@yahoo.co.uk.

In the meantime, (if you have any comments on delegated/secondary legislation you wish me to consider including in my briefing notes please e-mail them to reach me no later than 28 June 2007.)I

Fondest regards and best wishes always,

Clansman, xx.

mart2929Thu 21/06/07 21:21

Secondary legislation is supposed to be where the vague primary legislation has its practical meat.

But this isn't the case.

If you want to see the whole problem with secondary legislation, try finding the UK-US Tax Treaty on any British government's website.

Instead, you'll find a series of oblique references to statutory instruments, none of which come remotely close to the real treaty, which is available on the US IRS's website.

Another classic example is the unravelling stupidity of the Companies Act 2006. The DTI took nine years to dither about it. Business knew what business needed, but the DTI didn't understand the concept of "flexibility" (morals can be flexible, but corporate governance must freeze like a government department, apparently). Elected ministers don't really care (Companies Bills don't sex up tabloid headlines), so the civil servants funnelled it into the method of fascism that they most prefer: vacuuous primary legislation followed by a free reign of the unaccountable and uninfluencable in their continuing mission to exterminate our freedom by means of "reasonable" regulation.