But if such a programme extends beyond stemming the flow of cash (or at least attempting to do so), it is once again going to come back to law and enforcement. And that is thorny ground.
Also: Scottish Government’s legal regulation reforms denounced by judges and lawyers; Ross offers to work with Nationalist rebels to break Greens’ grip on government; new scandal for PSNI as High Court finds it illegally disciplined officers.
Even without withdrawing from or renegotiating the Aarhus Convention, there is scope for the Government to raise cost limits, and thus reduce friction and costs in the planning system.
Labour are happy to hammer the Government for it’s lack of progress, but lack any convincing alternative plan to make the system effective and bring numbers down.
Why should a previous government’s commitment to the international community trump (in practice if not in legal theory) a later government’s commitments to the British people?
As my old friend Ken Clarke said last week, opponents of the policy have not come up with any practicable alternative to it.
At the very least, create separate processes for a swift, inquisitorial, ‘Black Box’ investigation to find facts and learn lessons, rather than assign blame or provide catharsis.
He defends the Government’s approach to the Covid inquiry, in light of its commitments to “end the abuse of the judicial review”.
This excellent telling of the clash between Francis Bacon and Edward Coke draws out the men beneath the legend.
He could look again at short sentences. I wanted to scrap them – they are counter-productive in reducing reoffending and cause a great deal of disruption to prisons.
Yes, many decisions are now made by quangos or regulators rather than ministers. But in our constitution, delegating that authority is a choice.
Jolyon Maugham’s latest crusade – to make barristers pass political judgement on prospective clients – is a step in a very bad direction; Sir Keir Starmer’s recent appointment of Sue Gray was another.
Like any tool, civil rights law and be used for good or ill. Parts of the left are committed to wielding it as a sword; conservative should be prepared, as Kemi Badenoch said of the UK’s Equality Act, to use it as a shield.