That requirement is more dominant now than ever before in the complex and fast changing world of today. This is a time when the unthinkable happens regularly. Human life can now be cloned. Terrorists with package bombs are mobile and lethal. Traditional farm or industrial emissions can aggregate to poison water, air or streams.
Governments have to be able to act.
In a democracy, if democracy means anything at all, governments must also be held to account. We have lost the capacity to hold governments to account in the House of Commons. We are letting the country down. We have an obligation in this House to make changes in the next few years to restore that power to parliament. Traditionally, the primary role of the House of Commons has been the granting or withholding of supply to the government of the day.