Ten laws a day were introduced in spike last year
TEN new laws were introduced every day last year, according to new research, as the total number of laws passed by parliament soared by more than 15 per cent.
During the last 12 months, the government introduced 2,492 new laws, marking a 16 per cent spike compared to 2008, according to Sweet & Maxwell.
The economic crisis and the break up of parliament were two main contributors to the surplus of new laws, with 98 per cent passed as a statutory instrument or secondary legislation.
“There does tend to be a spike in new legislation following an economic crisis. There is pressure to introduce new laws to deal with the fall out from the recession and to try and tackle the causes of the crisis,” said Alina Lourie, director of Enterprise-Wide Solutions at Sweet & Maxwell.
The legal publisher said the numbers are impressive after parliament only sat for 153 days during the year.
Anti-tax evasion legislation, the Bradford & Bingley compensation scheme order and the Northern Rock transfer order were among some of the credit-crunch related laws passed through parliament.