Thus speaks David Howarth MP as cited in Hansard:

[www.publications.parliament.uk]

David Howarth (Cambridge) (LD): I hope that the Leader of the House has had a chance to read a letter in The Times today from six professors of law at Cambridge university, expressing their concern about the extraordinary powers granted to the Government by the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, which is now widely known as the “Abolition of Parliament Bill”. Will he take steps to rescind the decision of the House last Thursday not to consider the Bill in a Committee of the whole House but to take it upstairs? Surely, given the Bill’s massive constitutional importance and the seriousness of what part 1 does to the House’s powers, all Members should have the opportunity to discuss it in detail on the Floor of the House.

…these words were new to me, but after reading Howarth’s article in the Times and a blogpost on LiveJournal – setting aside its slightly hysterical tone – we are still left with a matter of concern that seems to check-out:

I’d like to introduce you to the tediously-named Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. You can find it here on the UK Government website: [www.publications.parliament.uk]

You probably haven’t heard of it before, unless you’re a habitual political activist. You should have, though. The Bill had its second reading in the House of Commons this week, where just a handful of MPs barely got the chance to debate it. It’s now winding its way through towards quietly becoming a hideous turning point.

The Bill is actually written rather simply, for a piece of law. It’s not very long. Have a look for yourself.

Under the terms of the Bill, a Cabinet Minster may alter any piece of UK legislation — or draft an entirely new piece — by issuing an “Order”.

That’s right. The Bill grants Ministers the power to pass or amend laws almost as they see fit.

There are some restrictions, of course. There are a few trivial content restrictions. The Minister has to be personally satisfied that the Order is in line with what party policy hopes to achieve, for example. The Minister also has to accept that an Order cannot be used to remove a freedom which members of the public could reasonably expect to retain — with the Minister deciding what reasonable expectations are, of course. New crimes created by Orders cannot have punishments more severe than two years imprisonment without trial, although of course multiple infringements can always be given to be served one after another.

[…]

The structure of Parliament and existing process means that whilst in theory the Bill would allow Parliament a vote on any given Order — NOTE not a debate; not a change to amend; not multiple readings; not all the other usual structure of the government process, just a vote — it would also be possible for Orders to come through Select Committees: in other words, to be rubber-stamped by Minister-selected groups of MPs.

“Best” of all, the Bill can even be used to amend itself. So the idea of, oh, say, removing the requirement for Parliament to have the option to strike an Order down could be passed through Select Committee as one recommendation in a gargantuan, bland and otherwise mildly beneficial report on something really boring — say giving MPs another pay rise — and an Order implementing the report could be slipped through quietly late one night when only a handful of MPs are about. Wham. Suddenly, Ministers would have the power to pass any law they saw fit without debate, notice or redress, all nice and legal and contitutional and unavoidable. (This is the “Indian Rope Trick” that a couple of the news reports mention).

…and goes on to cite various newspaper articles:

The Times (Guest Article by a Liberal MP)
The Times (Opinion Article by a legal/political correspondent)
The Times (Letters column, letter from several Cambridge Uni law professors)
The Guardian (Special report on the constitution)
The Observer (Politics & constitution article)

Hmmm… I think I shall drop a line to my MP and ask what he thinks of the matter.