A senior Tory peer has complained that the Government is tampering with long-established precedent over the way proposed laws are published, reports The Daily Mail.
Lord True, who was made a life peer in 2010 by Conservative leader David Cameron, believes that the new layout of bills, which is designed to be easier to understand, may in fact be responsible for the dumbing down of important legislative proposals.
The new presentations feature sub-headings and are often bullet-pointed to show key considerations.
Lord True believes that the new layout could make it easier for Government to attempt to pass badly drafted laws through Parliament.
Historically legal texts are barely broken down at all. Sentences and paragraphs are far longer than would be permitted in any other sphere of literature. The only breaks are into the various sections which aid referencing.
Lord True cites the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill which is currently making its way through Parliament as a prime example.
"The Bill is laid out in a daft manner, a bit like one of those Frequently Asked Questions website pages," he told The Daily Mail.
"On a printed page your eye can still wander to other parts of the Bill but once you move to electronic access, this approach could be positively unwholesome. If you signpost people, you can mislead them," he continued.
Lord True believes that the adjustment to the texts is an example of the downside of making the law accessible to all.
"This is fatuous dumbing-down, totally unnecessary, patronising, rather silly - the great curse of accessibility," he added in his interview with The Daily Mail.
Lord True raised his concerns in the House of Lords recently and received cross-party support for his criticisms.
The drive to simplify legal texts has not just taken off in the UK; across the pond in the US an anti-jargon law is celebrating its first birthday. The Plain Writing Act kicked in last October and requires government agencies to use clear language in documentation provided to the public.
One year in and the US Government is still some way off achieving their target, with one review showing that although some documents are in good, plain English the approach is still patchy.
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Dumbed-down parliamentary Bills should be in plain English...rather than just plain daft (The Daily Mail)
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