Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Parliament needs to do far more than just stand up to the latest government power grab

What a surprise: a government trying to make it easier to get legislation through the House of Commons. Today’s Huffington Post story that Leader of the House Andrea Leadsom is trying to ensure that there is a Tory majority on every committee scrutinising legislation is just the latest example of Theresa May’s government making every effort to make life easier for itself.

Journalists at the Number 10 lobby briefing today pointed out that the Tories haven’t actually won a majority and therefore do not deserve to have a majority in public bill and delegated legislation committees. Rather astonishingly, the Number 10 spokesman responded that ‘the government has a majority on the floor of the House’. It’s almost as if Theresa May has chosen to forget that a snap election of her calling actually removed that majority.

Leadsom’s spokeswoman told the Huffington Post that ‘the adjustments provide for maximum scrutiny with minimum disruption and delay, both to Parliamentary proceedings and to the governance of the country’.

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