A new law every three hours under Tony Blair

ONE law every three hours has been created during Tony Blair's decade in power - most of it without the full scrutiny of parliament, research published today will reveal.

Over the past ten years, close to 30,000 new laws have been created - an average of 2,685 a year or more than seven a day.

But the Labour government has also increasingly used statutory instruments, rather than acts of parliament, to impose the new flood of legislation.

Some 98 per cent of new laws in the Blair decade were introduced by statutory instrument, allowing less time for debate in parliament than the tabling of a bill. Read more