The problem is that since 1972 Parliament has been delegating its powers to the EU; and while it can still negate laws made through those powers, and it can still recover those powers, there’s now the risk that any such re-assertion of Parliamentary sovereignty could lead to a falling out with our neighbours.

It would therefore be interesting to see an analysis of the amount of legislation passed into law versus the amount of legislation discussed compared over the lifetime of the current Labour Government against that the lifetime of its Conservative predecessor.

I am not one for “chaining MPs to the bench” or for 48 weeks of 40 hour weeks spent in session each year.

But ensuring proper debate and having sensible sessions would put a natural brake on how much legislation could be passed.

I am tempted to include discussion of EU legislation and directives within the meaning of “any legislation of any kind”.

In that respect the European Communities Act 1972 is an enabling act; but unlike a traditional enabling act to empower British ministers or officials in some British organisation to make regulations, always with the proviso that Parliament might object and negate them, it enables people in the EU institutions to make laws which Parliament can only negate if it’s prepared to put the UK government in breach of its international obligations under the EU treaties.

It will come to that in the end, I feel sure, because with qualified majority voting we’re bound to end up with EU laws which would not be just irritating and debilitating and expensive, but which would have such a destructive effect on our country that Parliament would have to disapply them.

So my guess is that although about 80 percent of our new laws now come from the EU, if that ceased to be the case then the legislative workload for MPs would not quintuple, but might perhaps double or treble.

And in fact as a result of the Scotland Act 1998 that principle of equal representation is now observed as nearly as may be practicable, as the Boundary Commission for Scotland must use the same electoral quota for Scotland as that used in England:

http://www.bcomm-scotland.gov.uk/5th_westminster/report/chapter2.pdf

“1.3 … for the first review following the Scotland Act 1998, the electoral quota for England must be used to determine the appropriate number of Scottish seats at Westminster.”

“3. The electorate in Scotland at the enumeration date for our review was 3,995,489. A strict division of the electorate by the electoral quota for England would provide for 57 constituencies, rather than the 72 which are presently allocated.”

Because of the need to take into account geographical factors, which are especially difficult in Scotland, at the time of the 2005 general election there were 59 constituencies rather than 57.

I know that there are people who will continue to try to stir up the English against the Scots by pretending otherwise, and I expect that some newspaper leader writers will continue to be unable to accept that their habitual complaint about there being too many Scottish MPs is now out of date, but the reality is that

SCOTLAND IS NO LONGER OVER-REPRESENTED AT WESTMINSTER.

As far as “devolved matters” are concerned, of course the Labour MPs elected in Scotland should cease to vote on England-only laws.

If the Labour MPs in England had the slightest respect for their English constituents then they would have put a stop to it long ago, simply by saying that if a Labour MP elected in Scotland voted then a Labour MP elected in England would neutralise his vote by abstaining.

This full time job, no second job thing is just a crude bit of publicity by Labour to try and embarass the members of other Political Paty’s especially the Conservatives, and an attempt to gain a few more votes at the election.

The fact is that Labour have bought in and passed more laws (i think somewhere in the order of about 3,500) since they have been in power than any other Parliament. Most appear to be too complicated to operate efficiently, or in some cases at all, others have confused the existing Laws which were reasonably understood by most. Whilst many new laws have simply been poorly written and are unfit for proecution.

The EU laws which relate to us seem never to be properly investigated (in Parliament) and unlike other Countries who simply forget about those Laws with which they do not agree, we try and impose and enforce all of them.

The Tax system has become a nightmare to understand, and now involves a rainforest of paperwork to complete, with another rainforest of instructions to clarify.

If Labour think we should have a full time Parliament, then the ball is in their Court they have a huge majority to change it.

The Country is in crisis financially, businesses are failing left right and centre, immigration is uncontrolled, the prisons are full, we are at war abroad, the public sector debt is growing, education standards are in free fall, so lets all go on an 80 day holiday.

Double talk yet again.

Or am I missing something?

Odd that no-one from the fees office has been brought before parliament to explain it’s overt open handedness with taxpayers’ money !

Good MP’s nurture good relationships with their constituents and outweigh those labelled as ‘rogues’. The fees office clearly disregarded the rules.

“Whoever would overthrow a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech ….. ” Benjamin Franklin.