Labour creates one new crime for every day in power
Most of the new laws came during Tony Blair's tenure as prime minister
Thursday, 04, Sep 2008 05:43
Labour has created a total of 3,605 new laws since it came to power, adding up to a new crime almost every day since Tony Blair walked into Downing Street in 1997.
The most prolific legislator is the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with a total of 852 offences.
The Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (formerly the Department for Trade and Industry) comes second with 678 offences.
The Home Office has created 455 new crimes.
"This legislative diarrhoea is not about making us safer, because it does not help enforce the laws that we have one jot," said Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne, who released the figures at the launch of the party's new crime initiative.
"In what conceivable way can the introduction of a new criminal offence every day help tackle crime when most crimes that people care about have been illegal for years."
Some of the new offences border on the truly bizarre. One created a new criminal offence of starting a nuclear explosion while another outlawed disturbing a pack of eggs when instructed not to by authorised officers.