The law cupboards have been accumulating statutes for 800 years. There’s a lot of legislative junk on the shelves. And what better time for a spring clean than spring?

The Statute Law (Repeals) Bill, recently introduced into Parliament, will repeal the entirety of 260 Acts of Parliament and parts of another 68. The old statutes set to be cancelled include laws on scores of things from undesirable street musicians to a 1973 scheme to finance a channel tunnel, since when much water has passed under the bridge and over the tunnel.

We’ll always need to be ruled by some volumes of old legal rules because law is built solidly and made to apply for a long time. That is what the American judge Justice Holmes meant when he said in 1930 that law was “the government of the living by the dead”. But, of course, it’s desirable to have a periodic rationalising of law when all the anachronistic statutes are sheared away.

For example, one of the old laws that will be abolished is the Disorderly Houses Act of 1751. It was passed to regulate disreputable “places of publick entertainment” (excluding, of course, the House of Commons).

Disorderly houses were seen as a major cause of theft and robbery because they encouraged people to fritter away their earnings and resort to crime to survive. Most of the Act has been previously repealed but one last bit remains, a section aimed at nailing anyone who was factually in charge of such houses. The Act notes that by many “subtle and crafty contrivances” of managers it was difficult to prove who was in charge of a bawdy house (brothel) or disorderly house, so it says anyone can be convicted of running such a place if they appear to be running it or behave like they are in charge. The Act is now unnecessary as modern legislation more clearly criminalises running a brothel and unlawful gaming.

Another Act to be axed is the Servants’ Characters Act 1792. This was passed to stop what was seen as a dangerous ruse. A crook applying for a job as a servant for a wealthy master would fix it so that his character reference would come from an accomplice posing as a master at another grand address. Once in the job, the servant would case the joint, quit the job, then go back later and burgle the place. The Act was passed to prevent “evil-disposed persons” giving “false and counterfeit Characters [job references] of Servants”. It made that a crime. But it’s only been prosecuted once in the last two hundred years, and, in any case, there are now other criminal and civil laws that can be used against people who get jobs by false representations.

The Wapping Workhouse Act 1819 was designed to get funding for a new workhouse in Upper Wall Alley in London. The Act worked, and so, until they fell down in exhausted heaps, did the unfortunate members of the working class who inhabited the place. It is mentioned by Charles Dickens in The Uncommercial Traveller.

The Statute Law (Repeals) Bill that will achieve all these repeals is one that implements recommendations of the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission.

The Law Commission was established in 1965. Its aims are to ensure that the law is “as fair, modern, simple and as cost-effective as possible”. It conducts research and consultations in order to make systematic recommendations for consideration by Parliament. It acts to codify the law, eliminate anomalies, repeal obsolete and unnecessary enactments and reduce the number of separate statutes. The latest report on which the new repealing law is based is one of a series whose purpose is to clear away old law that “is no longer of practical utility”. The last one was in 2003 and resulted in hundreds of repeals across 17 areas of law.

The commission's recommendations for law reform have been greatly influential on the development of legal rights, duties and liabilities. So far, more than two-thirds of its recommendations have been implemented. As a result, substantial parts of the civil and criminal law, the law of property, and procedural law have been improved. Many acts, like the Computer Misuse Act 1990, the Civil Evidence Act 1995, and the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1984 originate in law commission reports.

In the truest traditions of British eccentricity, however, the good work of one part of the system is undone by the bad work of another part. While the law commissions are assiduously editing out heaps of useless law, and streamlining our rules, Parliament is feverishly clogging up the system with excessive new law. Since 1997, the government has passed 400 Acts and more than 32,000 statutory instruments. The legislation runs to more than 120,000 pages. In 2007, over 3,000 pages of new law were added to the statute books (sounds of exasperated screaming from law students).

There is little point in the law commission organising thoughtful spring cleaning if, while it’s taking boxes of antiquated statutes to the museum Parliament is busy delivering lorry loads of new legislation to the front door.

Professor Gary Slapper is Director of the Centre for Law at The Open University

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