The most frequent public complaint about Parliament and government is not about alleged sleaze but about the quantity and quality of legislation. Whether you are in the private or public sector, or a private citizen, the main impact of Westminster is through the torrent of Acts and consequent regulations.

It is not only big, controversial Bills such as the Lisbon treaty or 42-day detention without trial, but less newsworthy measures that can have a greater day-to-day effect.

The real problem lies in the desire of ministers to be seen to be legislating: the number of Bills each session is a measure of departmental virility. But the adversarial procedures of the Commons inhibit adequate scrutiny and have not stopped poorly drafted legislation from becoming law.

The record of the Lords is better. The increased assertiveness of peers has forced the Government to amend Bills. Not only has the Government been defeated twice as often as before the removal of most of the hereditary peers in 1999, but ministers have accepted broadly, rather than sought to reverse, the Lords’ position in two fifths of these defeats.

Several improvements have been introduced recently: more frequent publication of proposals in draft to allow scrutiny before Bills are brought in formally, and more scope to take evidence and hear outside views before line-by-line debates. Several changes were introduced only in late 2006, and Commons insiders reckon that the record has been mixed. But it is a step, albeit only one, in the right direction.

However, Parliament has often seemed to lose interest once a Bill becomes law. But examining how a new law, and regulations, have been working out in practice, or as MPs intended, has been neglected, even though it is crucial for assessing policy and, all too often, in judging whether a further law is needed. We have had a succession of criminal justice and counter-terrorism Acts every year or two, even though many provisions of the earlier statute have not been brought into force.

The case for more postlegislative scrutiny has been made by a variety of bodies, notably the Lords Constitution Committee, the Commons Modernisation Committee, the Hansard Society and the Law Commission. Harriet Harman, the Leader of the House of Commons, responded yesterday with the Government’s proposals.

The starting point is that between three and five years after Royal Assent, departments will publish a memorandum setting out how an Act had been implemented and worked out in practice. Then it will be up to the relevant Commons departmental committee to decide whether to conduct a specific inquiry on its own, to combine it with other policy inquiries, or whether a review would be better conducted by a Lords committee or a joint one of both Houses.

The aim is to ensure flexibility, providing a basic Whitehall review of all Bills, but only a full parliamentary inquiry on important measures to avoid adding to the burdens of already overstretched committees. None of these ideas will suddenly improve legislation, or reduce its quantity – only self-restraint by government can do that. But in this and many other ways, such as the scrutiny work of select committees, Parliament is steadily becoming more effective.

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