Is there effective scrutiny of the parliamentary law-making process in the UK? A major review conducted by the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons in 2006 (see www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmmodern/1097/109702.htm) concluded that Parliament was unable to keep pace with an increasing volume of legislation. The limited time available has resulted in legislation that ‘has often been ill-considered or even not debated at all’.
Although the number of Acts of Parliament passed each year has fallen, the overall volume in terms of the number of pages has increased dramatically (see Table 1). At the same time, there has been a rapid increase in the number and volume of statutory instruments — although this has had little impact on the time available in Parliament to scrutinise legislation (see Table 2).
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