Mad legislation - sledgehammers cracking nuts!
Discussion
One of the things that the whole covid thing has shown me is the gov legislation website, and the sheer amount of bizarre laws on there - not related to covid as I don't want to open that can of worms!
For example, plastic straws (and cotton buds, and stirrers) are now banned, and that takes 24 paragraphs of legislation! They are more restricted than bloody cigarettes!
Some choice bits:
Pharmacies can still sell them, but can't display or advertise them
Pubs and Restaurants can give them out, but cannot display or offer them
It's an offence to supply a plastic drink stirrer, even to another business, there are no exemptions
Then there's the Meat Pie and Sausage Roll regulations 1967!
It carries a £100 penalty, three months imprisonment or both!
So you had better make sure if you are selling pies that you know that a pasty must also comply, but not a vol-au-vent. And "Scottish Pies" only need 20% meat instead of 25%.
None of this applies to HM forces, or "Visiting Forces" of course.
Do we really need all of this stuff? It's mad
For example, plastic straws (and cotton buds, and stirrers) are now banned, and that takes 24 paragraphs of legislation! They are more restricted than bloody cigarettes!
Some choice bits:
Pharmacies can still sell them, but can't display or advertise them
Pubs and Restaurants can give them out, but cannot display or offer them
It's an offence to supply a plastic drink stirrer, even to another business, there are no exemptions
Then there's the Meat Pie and Sausage Roll regulations 1967!
It carries a £100 penalty, three months imprisonment or both!
So you had better make sure if you are selling pies that you know that a pasty must also comply, but not a vol-au-vent. And "Scottish Pies" only need 20% meat instead of 25%.
None of this applies to HM forces, or "Visiting Forces" of course.
Do we really need all of this stuff? It's mad
The majority of those rules are there to protect you.
If 25% minimum meat content wasn't specified then many meat pies, especially from big suppliers, would be mostly pastry, veg & gravy.
Plucking the nearest regulations I have to hand (which happen to be for lifejackets) it states that they 'must retain 95% of buoyancy after immersion in fresh water for 24 Hours'.
Because if it didn't then as long as it passed an initial float test that would be ok.
It sounds silly but the regulations for meat pies and lifejackets work in the same way:
The scrupulous and well intentioned supplier will unwittingly comply.
The nefarious and underhand supplier will be found out by their failure to comply.
What causes problems is when zealous auditors get involved and start to look for evidence of compliance and then it becomes 'onerous and nannying legislation'.
If 25% minimum meat content wasn't specified then many meat pies, especially from big suppliers, would be mostly pastry, veg & gravy.
Plucking the nearest regulations I have to hand (which happen to be for lifejackets) it states that they 'must retain 95% of buoyancy after immersion in fresh water for 24 Hours'.
Because if it didn't then as long as it passed an initial float test that would be ok.
It sounds silly but the regulations for meat pies and lifejackets work in the same way:
The scrupulous and well intentioned supplier will unwittingly comply.
The nefarious and underhand supplier will be found out by their failure to comply.
What causes problems is when zealous auditors get involved and start to look for evidence of compliance and then it becomes 'onerous and nannying legislation'.
Plymo said:
One of the things that the whole covid thing has shown me is the gov legislation website, and the sheer amount of bizarre laws on there - not related to covid as I don't want to open that can of worms!
For example, plastic straws (and cotton buds, and stirrers) are now banned, and that takes 24 paragraphs of legislation! They are more restricted than bloody cigarettes!
Some choice bits:
Pharmacies can still sell them, but can't display or advertise them
Pubs and Restaurants can give them out, but cannot display or offer them
It's an offence to supply a plastic drink stirrer, even to another business, there are no exemptions
Then there's the Meat Pie and Sausage Roll regulations 1967!
It carries a £100 penalty, three months imprisonment or both!
So you had better make sure if you are selling pies that you know that a pasty must also comply, but not a vol-au-vent. And "Scottish Pies" only need 20% meat instead of 25%.
None of this applies to HM forces, or "Visiting Forces" of course.
Do we really need all of this stuff? It's mad
Basically yes - In order to avoid grey areas that people can make use of, to get around the law involved.For example, plastic straws (and cotton buds, and stirrers) are now banned, and that takes 24 paragraphs of legislation! They are more restricted than bloody cigarettes!
Some choice bits:
Pharmacies can still sell them, but can't display or advertise them
Pubs and Restaurants can give them out, but cannot display or offer them
It's an offence to supply a plastic drink stirrer, even to another business, there are no exemptions
Then there's the Meat Pie and Sausage Roll regulations 1967!
It carries a £100 penalty, three months imprisonment or both!
So you had better make sure if you are selling pies that you know that a pasty must also comply, but not a vol-au-vent. And "Scottish Pies" only need 20% meat instead of 25%.
None of this applies to HM forces, or "Visiting Forces" of course.
Do we really need all of this stuff? It's mad
Let's say the law on meat pies only stated that the pie must contain some meat, but doesn't specify how much meat must be in the pie.
As a consumer, would you be happy to find out that the "meat" pie you bought, only contained 0.01% meat, with 99.99% being non-meat product?
I suspect you'd be a bit pi$$ed about it, even though the Law would say that the 0.01% meat content means it's perfectly legal to be sold as a "meat" pie.
So the Law has to specify a minimum percentage of meat content, in order for it to be sold as a "meat" pie.
You mention the laws on plastic straws, plastic stirrers and plastic ear-buds. The law is based on the same idea as that of cigarettes and tobacco.
Whilst the product itself is not illegal, the legislation has been made to prevent the product being actively promoted, in order to reduce it's use, and it's effect on people or the environment (in the case of tobacco - Peoples health, in the case of plastic straws/stirrers/ear-buds - Damage to the environment)
Because people will try to get around the law any way they can, the law has to be made specific.
Look at the rules on travelling during lock-down.
The idea was to have everyone stay indoors as much as possible, to give the virus as fewer opportunities as possible, to be transmitted to other people, by person to person contact.
Because it's totally impractical to stop people travelling completely, the Government made allowances, for such things as, to go shopping, to get some excercise, etc., etc., etc.
So straight away, you have people driving hundreds of miles across the Country, claiming that they are going shopping.
You have people travelling hundreds of miles across the Country to beauty spots, and to the beaches, claiming it's for exercise.
One way or another, people will try to find a way around the laws and regulations for everything, in order to do what they want.
So to prevent that from happening, the various Laws and regulations have to go into specific details to cover as much as possible, which is why they end up running on for page after page after page.
2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:
GT03ROB said:
CoolHands said:
Yet we still get horse meat in the supply chain.
What’s wrong with horse meat? 
Horse meat is actually healthier than beef! It’s bit of a speciality over here & most restaurants serve it, either as steaks, sausage, salami Is there too much legislation? Yes. Most of it comes from Whitehall as delegated legislation, and a good chunk also comes from Parliament as primary legislation. There are too many Ministerial legislative powers and too many Henry VIII clauses.
Can this be stopped? I doubt it, for two reasons.
First, modern societies and economies are intensely complex, and the regulation of them reflects that.
Secondly, politicians are overly responsive to media pressure to be seen to do something. There is often too little decision making and too much "fix stuff by making rules".
Sometimes we get double banking, a particular problem with the media driven creation of new criminal offences. We also get gold plating of international standards that the UK has signed up to with assorted international bodies.
I add that the quality of the drafting, and the quality of the Departmental and Parliamentary scrutiny of the drafting, have gone down since about the mid 1970s.
Can this be stopped? I doubt it, for two reasons.
First, modern societies and economies are intensely complex, and the regulation of them reflects that.
Secondly, politicians are overly responsive to media pressure to be seen to do something. There is often too little decision making and too much "fix stuff by making rules".
Sometimes we get double banking, a particular problem with the media driven creation of new criminal offences. We also get gold plating of international standards that the UK has signed up to with assorted international bodies.
I add that the quality of the drafting, and the quality of the Departmental and Parliamentary scrutiny of the drafting, have gone down since about the mid 1970s.
Note, however, that many of the laws that govern life are not contained in legislation but form part of the common law. For example, most of the law of contract is common law, as are most of the law of murder and of negligence.
It is not possible, and probably not desirable, to seek to codify everything, and no legal code can ever cater for every possible eventuality, which is why we still have courts presided over by humans rather than algorithms.
It is not possible, and probably not desirable, to seek to codify everything, and no legal code can ever cater for every possible eventuality, which is why we still have courts presided over by humans rather than algorithms.
Plymo said:
One of the things that the whole covid thing has shown me is the gov legislation website, and the sheer amount of bizarre laws on there - not related to covid as I don't want to open that can of worms!
For example, plastic straws (and cotton buds, and stirrers) are now banned, and that takes 24 paragraphs of legislation! They are more restricted than bloody cigarettes!
Some choice bits:
Pharmacies can still sell them, but can't display or advertise them
Pubs and Restaurants can give them out, but cannot display or offer them
It's an offence to supply a plastic drink stirrer, even to another business, there are no exemptions
Then there's the Meat Pie and Sausage Roll regulations 1967!
It carries a £100 penalty, three months imprisonment or both!
So you had better make sure if you are selling pies that you know that a pasty must also comply, but not a vol-au-vent. And "Scottish Pies" only need 20% meat instead of 25%.
None of this applies to HM forces, or "Visiting Forces" of course.
Do we really need all of this stuff? It's mad
Trouble is that the Govts job is to make laws isn't it? Otherwise they'd just be stood around for 5 years doing sweet FA.For example, plastic straws (and cotton buds, and stirrers) are now banned, and that takes 24 paragraphs of legislation! They are more restricted than bloody cigarettes!
Some choice bits:
Pharmacies can still sell them, but can't display or advertise them
Pubs and Restaurants can give them out, but cannot display or offer them
It's an offence to supply a plastic drink stirrer, even to another business, there are no exemptions
Then there's the Meat Pie and Sausage Roll regulations 1967!
It carries a £100 penalty, three months imprisonment or both!
So you had better make sure if you are selling pies that you know that a pasty must also comply, but not a vol-au-vent. And "Scottish Pies" only need 20% meat instead of 25%.
None of this applies to HM forces, or "Visiting Forces" of course.
Do we really need all of this stuff? It's mad
TX.
The Spruce Goose said:
how many laws are removed each year?
Twice as many as are made 
If only laws were regulations.
Should be one in five out ?
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/one-in-t...
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