Cautious welcome for Government U-turn on 'Abolition of Parliament Bill'

1.49.29pm GMT Thu 13th Apr 2006

David Howarth, Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, has cautiously welcomed the government's U-turn on the controversial Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, as reported in the Financial Times today.

Mr. Howarth, who sits on the Standing Committee for the Bill and has been behind the campaign to oppose it, commented:

"I welcome any move to restrict the scope of the bill to purely deregulation, but it isn't enough.

"The government needs to accept restrictions that prevent it from using the Bill to change the constitution of this county. It also needs to accept procedural safeguards that are stronger than merely relying on government dominated committees in the House of Commons and it needs to remove from the Bill the means to grant unlimited legislative power to one person.

"I'm glad to see that the government plan to take several months to sort out the details of these amendments because the topic is of such constitutional importance. It is a disgrace that they had attempted to rush through the legislation in such a fashion."