Letwin's Deregulation Bill?

[Hypognosis]

Been waiting for this one for half the day because of this news article: -

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/31/secret-hearings-police-journalists-deregulation-bill

Didn't hear the first half of the speech but it seems to cover all manner of changes to otherwise unconnected regulations.

He skipped past one section, (Clause 13 of the bil) and someone had to interrupt him to point this out.

It was about rights of way across private land (small houses as much as large) so rambling inevitably got a mention. Not much detail on what new rights are introduced or old rights taken away.

Not sure if it was a mental lapse or a serious attempt to sneak something past all observers. (Sidebar to this thread - just a general observation about using hotch-potch bills, like this, to lull people to sleep with boring itemsand sneak through stuff that people might want a wider debate about)

[Old_Jim]

Here it is. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2013-2014/0162/cbill_2013-20140162_en_1.htm Read sections 13 to 20. It cuts down on the current ridiculous amount of red tape over rights of way. I can't see that it makes the law any different.

It's no good those Liberal MPs thinking they can ramble over my strawberry patch. Margaret, load up the blunderbuss!

[Hypognosis]

Thanks Old_Jim. Good link.

The RoW issues are just a sidebar on this thread. I'll look at those later.

Here's another oddity which you wonder why no-one is making a fuss about

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40 15
Sale of liqueur confectionery to children under 16: abolition of offence

Section 148 of the Licensing Act 2003 (sale of liqueur confectionery to children under 16) is repealed.
-----

If passed, this bill puts everything though en bloc. I don't understand why they aren't debated and struck off one at a time - with proper scrutiny. If I dropped all Twitter, Facebook and Answerbank activity to zero, it would probably still take me a week to read (let alone comprehend, think about) everything in this bill.

There was supposed to be something in this bill which was interpreted as a threat to journalists' ability to protect the anonymity of their informants. Something to do with Clause 47, apparently. I've looked at that one but it just seems to be a series of "delete this; insert this" statements so it's not possible to make sense of what powers are being added or taken away.

Can any of the AB Legal eagles make any sense of this? Are the journalists (Guardian, so far) and blogger(s) making a fuss over nothing?

[Hypognosis]

I'm in the middle of reading this blogger piece by Gill Phillips

http://inforrm.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/hidden-in-the-deregulation-bill-is-this-another-backdoor-threat-to-journalism-gill-phillips/

"Clause 47 of the Deregulation Bill removes the statutory procedural safeguards set out in Schedule 1 of PACE, and replaces them with a power to make rules to provide for an as yet undefined process. The removal from parliamentary scrutiny of such a fundamental free speech protection is worrying. As the Newspaper Society have pointed out, these provisions have been in place for thirty years, were deliberately enshrined in PACE so as to strengthen journalistic protections, have been authoritatively considered by the courts and pragmatically applied by the police, the media and the courts."

[Hypognosis]

Not one of you concerned about new legislation being snuck in through the back door, so to speak? No journalists among you?

Legal types?

Fred? Barmaid?

Does anyone think I should repost this in Law?

[Hypognosis]

@AB Editor

Can this thread be moved to the law section, please?