HLE blogger James Wilson analyses a legislation lament
"Thomas Pascoe in The Telegraph gives a familiar layperson’s lament about the amount and complexity of legislation in the UK (“Britain Unleashed: We need simple, clear laws—not evasive, ambiguous jargon that erodes freedom”, 24 July 2012). He complains that since the Second World War: ‘Legislation has become more ambiguous and full of clauses, warrants and exemptions as time has gone by. This is largely because politicians have incorporated the evasive language of their television appearances into their legislating.’
Mr Pascoe is right to say that the substantially increased amount of legislation of the past few decades was at least partially a reaction to the Second World War. Indeed, it might be argued that nothing less than the whole raison d’être of the state itself was fundamentally and irrevocably altered by both of the world wars, together with the intervening Great Depression.
In 1910, the welfare state was in its infancy, much of the country lived in abject poverty, industry was wholly privately owned and employment rights protection was minimal to say the least. It was because the state felt no option other than to commit itself to ‘total war’—where all economic activity was to be directed to the war effort—that it intervened in so many aspects of life. The modern regulatory state was thereby born.
The regulatory state was extended by the need to reprise total war in the Second World War, and extended further still by the need to rebuild the country afterwards. Two world wars had left the electorate demanding fundamental changes to society, reflected in the victory of Attlee’s government with its programme of social reforms requiring unprecedented levels of state intervention.
Mr Pascoe is on shakier ground, however, with his proposals as to how the complexity of modern legislation might be remedied. He argues: ‘It is absolutely crucial that in future laws are drafted in such a way that they make clear to anyone reading what is contained.’
Unfortunately, such a measure would require an impartial body to vet the language in which legislation is phrased…”
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