WE don’t do clickbait here at the Worst of Westminster – but if we did it might go something like this:
Tory MP in bid to privatise the BBC!
In a sense, it’s not untrue. Neither would a headline saying: MP in bid to force UK Government to recognise the state of Palestine.
Both of those things were on the order paper in the House of Commons on Friday.
Sometimes, as a treat, the powers that be give MPs the chance to debate what are called private members’ bills on a Friday.
Like stamp collecting or making little model ships in a bottle, some might see it as a slightly eccentric hobby – but it doesn’t do anyone any harm.
It’s a sort of a game of kickabout but with legislation.
The “bids” referred to above are private members’ bills which were scheduled for debate on Friday. Tory MP Christopher Chope has drafted a bill which would privatise the BBC.
He’s also got a handful on “Covid-19 vaccine damage”, one to give people suspected of crimes anonymity, another to exempt clothing for under 18s from VAT, one that would make it easier for people to sue the highways authorities, one to create new immigration offences and finally, one to give NHS patients waiting for more than a year for treatment access to “alternative” care.
Will any of them become law? I wouldn’t bet on it.
Readers with even a passing understanding of how Parliament works will recognise that, for better or worse, it is pretty unlikely that the Labour Government will be forced into privatising the BBC by a backbench Tory MP.
By the same token, they won’t be moved by the efforts of Independent Alliance MP Shockat Adam to push them into recognising the state of Palestine.
Due to pesky time constraints, none of the bills mentioned got debated.
That’s not to say that none ever become law. For instance, Tory MP Anna Firth managed to make it a specific criminal offence to abduct of a cat or dog – stealing pets was very much still illegal before the passage of the Pet Abduction Act 2024.
Another fun example is the Shark Fins Act 2023, which banned the import and export of shark fins.
But ultimately, unless it’s something like the rules around selling shark fins or making the abduction of cats more illegal than it was before, the Government will usually get its way.
As I said, it’s a bit of a weird hobby, but Westminster is full of oddities.
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