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Lords warn of urgent need for the balance of power between Parliament and the executive to be re-set
Not specifically related to social welfare law, but interesting nevertheless ...
Two new Lords reports on the balance of power between Parliament and the Executive:
- Government by Ditkat: A call to return power to Parliament
- Democracy Denied? The urgent need to rebalance power between Parliament and the Executive
These reports from our two committees are a blunt warning, that hundreds of laws are being imposed on all of us, in effect by government diktat, with no effective scrutiny and control by Parliament.
Increasingly the Government has made use of secondary legislation, regulations and orders which are subject to a much lower level of scrutiny than primary legislation. Given this, it is not surprising that the executive can be tempted to put as much of the law as possible into regulations.
At a time of national crisis, as during the pandemic when urgent action is required it may be necessary to pass laws speedily with the minimum of parliamentary process. However, government by diktat must not become the norm and the balance of power between the Parliamentary and the Executive must be reset to ensure effective legislative scrutiny resulting in laws that are necessary, which address the issues they are intended to resolve without creating further issues or resulting in other unintended consequences because they are unclear.
Our reports set out solutions to arrest this development and we would urge the Government to heed our call to follow them and restore power to Parliament to effectively perform its role.