h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In the 12 months leading up to May 2006, the Government produced 72,400 pages of legislation and 26,200 pages of explanatory notes. That is the equivalent of War and Peace - seventy times. It is one hundred thousand American Declarations of Independence. Lay each page end to end and it would stretch for 18 miles. Stacked, they would be taller than a double decker bus.

In the last ten years, 500,000 office jobs have been created in Government and councils.

Is there a connection?

Why do we need so many rules and regulations?

The Government set up a Better Regulations Taskforce which calculated that bureaucracy costs Britain £100bn a year - 12% of GDP and more than VAT and Fuel Duty combined.

Do you think we're over-regulated? Is it a good thing? Do we really need 18 miles of new regulations every year?

No.

Yes.

In his post, SWL asked four questions which were ameniable to a yes/no answer:

Is there a connection?
Do you think we're over-regulated?
Is it a good thing?
Do we really need 18 miles of new regulations every year?

Which are you answering, coelacanth?

TRiG.

I apologise for a not very well-phrased post.

OK. Given that no one is seriously going to argue that excessive bureaucracy is a *good* thing, does anyone have any examples of ridiculous red tape or legislation?

This might make a good collaborative guide entry

As a starter:

The government's Financial Assistance Scheme, set up in 2004 to compensate pensioners left penniless after many company pension schemes folded, has paid out £100,000 in two years. Shared between 32 pensioners. It has cost £5.2m to administer.

No, but I have an example of really *non* ridiculous legislation. The recent change in the law to outlaw discrimination on grounds of sexuality.

Which is an interesting example in itself, in that a very simple piece of legislation (in theory) probably generated a massive ammount of paperwork in drafting and re-drafting, ammendments and all the parephanalia of the actual act in order that the terminology was, hopefully, clear and watertight. Equally, a lot of that legislation is probably ammending existing legislation to close such loopholes.

Sorry to be a bore.

So we need more regulations to address the incompetence in the original legislation?

As soon as any legislation is written their will always be some bugger looking to find a loophole, some element that was missed, that people failed to take account of, which I guess you could call that incompetenece but people are only human. I'm not saying all of the paperwork is necessary, I'm sure much of the duplication and rewritting could be avoided, perhaps if technology were utilised more readily, for example, we wouldn't generate quite so much paper.

>>As soon as any legislation is written their will always be some bugger looking to find a loophole<<

Yes tha's why we have lawyers. And it's the price we pay for a fairish society.

And you wouldn't believe how clever the rich buggers are wriggling out of tax they owe the state, which helps to look after poor and vulnerable people. And yet some people still spend all their time whining about benefit scroungers.

But nothing in this world is perfect. And hey it's good to live in a country that seeks to bring equality and fairness to ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, gay people, and last but not least FEMALES

I fully support all Sex Discrimination legislation. There is absolutely no reason at all to discriminate on the grounds of someone's sex. That might surprise you Fanny, but I'm sure you agree

Not at all SWL, not everything is to do with you.

I just came over all silly and giggly and proud for a sec when I felt my titties...

Legislation has to go through a huge number of random procedures before it actually becomes effective, and everything must be defined clearly so that it is interpreted uniformly. It is painstakingly slow when all that people really want is to have certain rights, or certain actions made illegal, but as a lawyer I think it's unfortunately necessary.

More annoyingly:

There are people who do stuff.

Then there are people who regulate the people who do stuff.

Then there are people who regulate the people that regulate people who do stuff...

And so on until it gets ridiculous!

It's very brave of you to enter this thread and openly admit to being a lawyer.

Well, I'm quite pleased to see a lawyer here

I'm also pleased to see that Fanny believes sex discrimination is wrong. It's just a pity that political parties set themselves above the law and discriminate openly on grounds of sex.

"Lawyer" is a rather politically incorrect term. I am a member of the legal community!

Ah !

You'll have Community Leaders soon and will be applying for official victimhood status next. It will be an offence to discriminate against lawyers and all lawyer jokes will be deemed offensive

Isn't it ann irony that lawyers and politians are among the few social group it is still socially acceptable to treat as second class citizens?