End-of-term farce leads to bad laws

For MPs it’s a time of frenetic packing up and throwing out, and not just for those who have decided to retire. When this parliament is dissolved they are no longer MPs and no longer have any rights or status within Parliament, and that includes their office space and kit.

For peers it’s just a break. Like Colne we long endure, and we can use our office and computers during the election period – though there are strict rules about not using them for party political purposes.

Not that I’ll be going down to London to play solitaire on my House of Lords computer (I’d have to learn how) though I could usefully spend a week sorting out files (computer ones and real ones) if I did.

Today I’m due to spend more time in the committee on the Flood and Water Management Bill, a strange lull before the storm when we’ll go through the motions of scrutinising more of this important but rather apolitical new legislation in the full knowledge that the rest of its progress in the Lords will suddenly take place in half an hour at most in the process called the Wash Up.

This is the farce of this week. Around 18 Government Bills are still in various stages in the Commons and the Lords. Some are major items such as the Children, Schools and Families Bill, the Energy Bill and the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill.

The Personal Care at Home Bill has already been savaged in the Lords and the Digital Economy Bill is highly controversial.

They will all be suddenly stopped and put into the Wash Up - a polite term for secret negotiations between the parties in the now non-smoke-filled rooms. When they come out some will be wafted through as they stand, some will go through with whole chunks cut out, and others will die a speedy death.

It’s a disgraceful way to make new laws and it will mean that some bad legislation gets through just because it has not been properly scrutinised.

It’s the end of term farce and it does no one any good.