This is long overdue. There have been over 50 criminal laws passed since March with no prior parliamentary scrutiny. It’s undemocratic and makes for bad laws. They are too important to leave to ministers alone
And see the cross-party @HumanRightsCtte conclusion on this committees.parliament.uk/publications/2…
I really hope that Labour get behind this. It’s not about party politics but about maintaining parliamentary democracy. Otherwise we could have another six months or a year of our daily lives being controlled by ministerial decree
The government’s response will be they need flexibility to respond to the urgent crisis, however Brexit legislation has shown how quickly Parliament can act when under pressure. For example, it would not put the government back to require seven days notice of new regulations.
Another option would be to put in place some sort of urgent cross-party coronavirus regulation review committee with a timetable of e.g. seven days notice, two days to respond, two days for government to go back with changes then straight to Parliamentary vote.
The main point is that this crisis has generated all manner of creative solutions to problems - the urgent problem of maintaining Parliamentary oversight is an important one which can be solved with everyone working together.
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