United Kingdom Law/Great Repeal Bill 2008

The Great Repeal Bill was a proposed bill from 2007 onwards, intended to abolish many laws and regulations hampering individual freedoms, society, and businesses in the United Kingdom It was similar to the proposed bill to remove European Union laws after. Members of the public can add to the list of laws and rules to be repealed in the draft of the Bill below. You are also highly encouraged to join the debate about why certain legislation should be included (or excluded) from a Great Repeal Bill.

This experiment in direct democracy allows ordinary citizens to have a direct say in drafting of legislation and is believed to be the first of its kind Since several of the bodies and some of th regulations listed have been earmarked for abolition a decision is needed on whether to remove these from the wiki or to highlight them as successes. Hundreds of quangos will be axed, merged or reformed as part of a major shake-up of public sector organisations announced on Thursday.

About the Bill
First proposed by Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan in their book, The Plan: 12 months to renew Britain, the Great Repeal Bill is as much an effort in deregulation as it is an initiative in open politics and a move towards direct democracy. The Labour party and the TUC will ensure that all existing rights and protections are maintained and will take the necessary actions to prevent Conservatives from watering down or scrapping any of these hard won rights and protections. There is currently no right of popular initiative in Britain to ensure that popular legislative measures are debated and voted on in the British Parliament. Nor is there at this time a right of referendum. However, working with the political system as it is today, we hope to present to Parliament the draft Bill as a Private Members Bill, or ultimately as a government Bill.

The Bill is to be drafted in collaboration with ordinary citizens drawing upon the collaborative approach a wiki editing model provides. This experimental approach hopes to provide insight into public opinion, examine if a case for popular legislative initiative using the wiki approach can be made, and provide a resource for public policy research. The initiative originally began on the blog site ConservativeHome in June 2008.

A parallel effort is being made on a private, "guarded" wiki at ourlaw.wikispaces.com. Part of the outcome that may be sought is to see the difference between the results of an open vs. closed environment. Both wikis are licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0, so content may be ported in either direction where appropriate.

Contributing
Please be specific when adding suggestions for laws to scrap (not new laws, the clue lies in the title - Great Repeal Bill). The table headings for each section is indicative of what suggestions should include:


 * Clause - A numbering which should be incremented if adding a new proposal.
 * Legislation - Ideally the short title and year for specific Primary legislation (typically the Act of Parliament), or title, year and sequence number for secondary legislation (typically Statutory Instruments or Regulations) which contains the laws, regulations or provisions to be repealed. If you are able to assist by clarifying the title in existing proposals, please do so.
 * Extent of repeal - The specific section or provisions of the law that should be repealed. If you are able to assist other contributors by making explicit the specific section a proposal refers to, please do so.
 * Reasoning - A brief explanation or justification as to why the bill should be concerned with repealing the law.

 Do not delete without consensus Please do NOT simply delete proposals from this page. Debate them instead.

Maintenance
Because this draft Bill is intended to be a working document, proposals should be moved to United Kingdom Law/Great Repeal Bill 2008/Old if they are out of date by reason of the legislation they propose for repeal having been repealed.

Title and words of enactment
An Act to repeal Acts of Parliament and secondary legislation that are detrimental to the quality of life and freedom of British citizens to choose how they wish to live their lives; and for connected purposes.

Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

Extent, commencement, transitional provision and short title
(1) This Act extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. (2) An amendment or repeal contained in this Act has the same extent as the Act or instrument or relevant part of the Act or instrument to which the amendment or repeal relates (ignoring extent by virtue of an Order in Council). (3) This Act comes into force at the end of the period of six months beginning from the date of Royal Assent. (This provision will give time for public and private sector organisations to adjust to the many reforms in this Act) (4) A Minister of the Crown, or two or more Ministers of the Crown acting jointly, may by order make transitional, transitory or saving provision in connection with the coming into force of any provision of this Act. (5) An order under subsection (4) is to be made by statutory instrument. (6) This Act may be cited as the Great Repeal Act 2010.

Applicability to devolved assemblies
This Act shall neither add to nor subtract from the devolved powers of the National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Parliament or the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Authorities and bodies to be abolished
There are plenty of QUANGOs available at that can be listed here and a full list here as well