Hot on the heels of my post about Michael Gove criticising the short working hours and long holidays at Westminster in the education system, BobE spotted this in The Guardian:
MPs risk accusations of laziness and poor value for money because the number of hours they work in Westminster appear to be shrinking, according to the senior MP responsible for scrutinising public spending.
Margaret Hodge, who chairs the public accounts committee, said the coalition should lengthen the parliamentary calendar because MPs were spending less time in Westminster scrutinising policy.
In an interview with the Guardian, Hodge warned of a growing "democratic vacuum" and said that parliamentary sessions were so short "it feels as if we are hardly working".
The centenarian bug
3 hours ago
10 comments:
Well, they could stop hiving everything tricky off to quangos for a start
"MPs were spending less time in Westminster scrutinising policy."
Presumably the last thing the government wants is its shonky policies scrutinised by MPs.
If they promise to make less laws in the shorter time they have, can we call it a deal?
L, that's one example.
B, exactly, but MPs are not the brightest people around.
SB, yes, delete three old laws for each new one. They can do that on their afternoons off.
I think the house of lords could be reformed into the house of law repeal.
Would be good to get them removing rubbish laws.
Bearing in mind there is currently a review of MPs pay and allowances in train, now would seem an ideal opportunity to switch MPs to the "new model standard job" they - coalition MPs especially - consider it perfectly fine for everyone else to have especially as its use is cutting a swathe through the problem of "unemployment" - have all MPs put on a "zero hours contract". I bet they'll be ever so keen to extend the amount of time Parliament sits then ... :-)
MW - "SB, yes, delete three old laws for each new one. They can do that on their afternoons off".
You mean reopen and reinvigorate that splendid "Your Freedom" idea from 2010?
" Nick Clegg calls on public to help scrap bad laws
Members of the public will be given the right to nominate unpopular laws they want scrapped, Nick Clegg has announced the Your Freedom initiative intended to begin a shift of power away from the state to the people".
Yes, whatever did happen with that - there are "rumours" that it became such an unwieldy political hot potato that it was eventually handed over to the Home Office with its "not fit for purpose" credentials to ensure it could sit gathering dust in a basement cupboard whilst the nation forgot all about it, but that couldn't possibly be true, now could it?
SB, yes, that sounds like a fun arrangement.
BobE, some idiots suggested scrap the smoking ban, well duh, we have to think about the health of all the children in pubs and so on, we, hang on...
Mw Indeed, Nick Whom Everyone Agree With gave a splendidly splenetic "look we didn't mean getting rid of those sorts of laws, anyone who suggested that go spend the next 15 years on the naughty step" BUT, even after all the (sic) "obvious non runners" had been weeded out Nick was left with a healthy selection - going into the hundreds - of laws ripe for repeal, and, so the rumour further goes, when he saw the size of the task and realised if he held onto his "ownership" of the project he would spend the entirety of 2011 - 2015 trying to actually deliver some results. So, it was first (rumour suggests) dangled in front of the M O O at DCLG as a hefty chunk of the "these can go" laws were those the Pickles or his junior Ministers were in fact responsible for : The M O O demurred from being handed the whole poison chalice and, after some merry pass the parcel, it, so rumour goes, was gifted to the Home Office as yet another department with "lots of laws ripe for repealing" in the final list, and has sat there, unloved and unnoticed, ever since ....
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