2010 press releases

26th Jan: Local MP Norman Baker hits out at Labour's 4,300 new criminal offences

Lewes MP Norman Baker has today slammed the government for creating the creeping criminalisation of Britain, after the Lib Dems revealed that Labour has created almost 4,300 new criminal offences since coming to power in 1997.

Figures released by the Lib Dems have shown that between 1997 and 2009, 4,289 new criminal offences were created - almost one for each day that Ministers have been in office.

The figures also show that the rate at which new offences are being created is increasing. Under Tony Blair, new criminal offences were created at a rate of 27 a month, but under Gordon Brown's premiership, this has risen to 33 a month.

Norman Baker commented:

"The government is clearly determined to create swathes of new offences, but many of them are worthless and will do nothing to help fight crime in practice. In many cases, these offences are simply duplicates of others which already existed. In others, they are interfering in areas where the state should leave well alone.

"The government is spending too much time and effort posturing on penalties rather than focusing on making people in the Lewes area safer. We should focus on ensuring that laws are properly enforced, not simply creating hundreds of new laws each year.

"The Lib Dems will introduce a small 'stop unit', which will require all departments to prove that a new offence is really necessary before it is signed into law."

The Liberal Democrats calculated in May 2008 that 3,622 criminal offences had been created since 1997. Since then, a further 667 have been created, giving a new total of 4,289. This total includes taking away all the offences that have been abolished in the same period.

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