Britons are forbidden from disturbing packs of eggs and from selling game killed on a Sunday, it was revealed this week by an opposition MP who condemned ministers for introducing ridiculous laws.

The day after Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government laid out its legislative agenda for the coming year, Liberal Democrat lawmaker Chris Huhne noted the stream of sometimes “completely bizarre” new offences it had created.

Since the Labour party took power in 1997 under then-prime minister Tony Blair, it has created 3 600 new criminal offences, Huhne said — adding this was “massively complicating” the job of police and the criminal justice system.

“Some of these offences are completely bizarre — for example, the offence of causing a nuclear explosion,” he told MPs.

“The idea that anyone might cause a nuclear explosion without killing anybody, and therefore being subject to a possible charge of murder, is extremely far-fetched.”

Other new offences include “wilfully pretending to be a barrister”, “disturbing a pack of eggs when instructed not to by an authorised officer” and “offering for sale a game bird killed on a Sunday or Christmas day”, he said.

Huhne accused the government of doing nothing to repeal these laws. Justice minister Jack Straw asked for a full list of the ones the MP wanted removed from the statute books so that he could review them. — AFP