Given a few moments to think about it, I’m sure we could all come up with a daft law to add to some that are already on the statute book.
I’ve always been of the view that the fewer laws we have, the better governed we shall be; that, within reason, you should be able to do pretty well whatever you want so long as it doesn’t adversely affect the enjoyment of others. This has broadly been the status of our legal framework: we are permitted to do anything that isn’t against the law. There are many jurisdictions where the reverse is the case: you may only do what the law specifically permits you to do.
Many of my constituents have an appetite for much greater regulation of our lives. They write to me proposing new laws to address any number of real or imagined problems. They have ‘happy thoughts’ about “how much better organised life would be in only we had a law to make us do…” whatever the bee in their bonnet may be.
Putting their happy thought in an email to me does no harm. Alas, parliamentary colleagues have the opportunity, afforded the annual private members’ bill ballot, to put their happy thoughts into law.
There are 13 sitting Fridays per year on which the Commons deals with the private members’ bills that were successful in the ballot. It is a minority taste: Most MPs clear off to their constituencies where they have more pressing demands on their time like visiting schools, councils, enterprises, police, NHS and many more.
When, constituents write to me to ask me to be in Westminster on a Friday to support a particular bill, I reply telling them that, even were I in favour of the bill, the best thing I can do to support it is to stay away. The greatest enemy of any private members’ bill is the limited time available to it. Opponents need not trouble to muster numbers to vote against it. All they need do is speak at length about it. If you did support it, then it would be foolish to come along and help the opponents by taking up some of that time yourself.
Such is the potential damage and cost of the proposals in so many private members’ bills, sensible and public-spirited MPs will organise small teams of colleagues dedicated to ‘talking-out’ the offending bills. It is essential too that the Government Whips have some oversight of this process. It is also vital that the whip on duty at close of business shouts “object” at the right moment to prevent any undebated bill going through ‘on the nod’.
Given all this, the message gets through to most colleagues that, if they want their bill to proceed, then it must be of narrow scope and almost wholly uncontroversial.
Alas, every now and again the system malfunctions. Perhaps the dedicated team didn’t show on a particular Friday, or the whips were asleep at the wheel, or even -extraordinarily- the minister at the despatch box indicated support for the intentions of the bill. Whatever it was, the result can be a disastrous piece of legislation. Here is one such: we now have the prospect of employees being entitled to sue their employer for damages if a customer upsets them.
We all know how difficult it is to keep a small business going, why would we throw another burden on them by making them responsible for the speech and opinions of their customers?
How daft is that?