Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has promised the "biggest shake-up of our democracy" in 178 years as he sets out plans for political reform.The Tory-Lib Dem coalition is proposing fixed-term parliaments, an elected House of Lords and a referendum on changing the voting system.
Mr Clegg said the government was "not insecure about relinquishing control".
The Lib Dem leader also called on the public to nominate laws to be repealed, as part of a "power revolution".
Mr Clegg, who is overseeing the government's political reform plans, said he wanted to "transform our politics so the state has far less control over you, and you have far more control over the state".
This would include scrapping the ID card scheme and accompanying National Identity Register, all future biometric passports and the children's Contact Point Database. It would also ensure CCTV was "properly regulated" in future and the storage of innocent people's DNA restricted.
Mr Clegg said: "Britain was once the cradle of modern democracy. We are now, on some measures, the most centralised country in Europe, bar Malta."
The deputy prime minister promised to give voters powers to "recall" corrupt MPs and for an elected House of Lords, based on a "proportional" voting system.
He said: "I'm talking about the most significant programme of empowerment by a British government since the great enfranchisement of the 19th Century. The biggest shake up of our democracy since 1832, when the Great Reform Act redrew the boundaries of British democracy, for the first time extending the franchise beyond the landed classes."
He added: "Incremental change will not do. It is time for a wholesale, big bang approach to political reform."
He accused the previous government of "obsessive lawmaking" and pledged to "get rid of the unnecessary laws" and "introduce a mechanism to block pointless new criminal offences".
He promised to ask the public "which laws you think should go" as they "tear through the statute book".
Mr Clegg added: "This government is going to persuade you to put your faith in politics once again."
He said differences between the Lib Dems and Conservatives were "almost impossible to spot" when it came to wanting to decentralise power.
He added: "We don't, unlike Labour, believe that change in our society must be forced from the centre. Unlike the previous Labour government, we're not insecure about relinquishing control."
| This is going to be interesting. Good luck, cousins! |