The Companies Bill passed on the statute book yesterday (08 Nov) and Alistair Darling, trade and industry secretary, said that this is the end of the road for reform. However, this seems to contradict earlier comments by Margaret Hodge, industry minister. She said that the Bill is a first step in tightening statutory controls on businesses. More rules to the already bulky law - 1,300 clauses - could not serve the Bill's purpose of deregulation and saving companies £250 million a year.
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Big legislation is inherently dangerous
How many people know what is in the Companies Bill? Just like, how many people knew what was in the proposed European Constitutional Treaty? You can bet very few members of the relevant legislatures do, let alone the millions of their constituents who will be affected by it. This cannot be said to have had effective legislative scrutiny, even if a fair amount of time was spent in debate. There should be a law against long laws, and another that limits the total number of words that governments should be allowed to include within legislation during a parliamentary term. Not seriously, but this volume of legislation cannot be scrutinised, observed or enforced, and becomes a charter for clever people to manipulate the system.