Give us power to get on with it.

Byline: ian PARRI

WE must be the only country in the world where proposed legislation can take three years to see the light of day.

This is the demeaning position we find ourselves in, as our supposedly democratically elected government in Cardiff goes cap-in-hand to England to seek the right to do anything.

Proposed plans for new powers to protect the environment were first published on June 19th 2007.

They've just been approved by a bunch of nonentity MPs you've never heard of that make up the Welsh Affairs Committee.

If the House of Lords and the Secretary of State for Wales further approve them, they'll go back to the Senedd for them to thrash out the details.

Talk about hoops to jump through.

And the laws they're on about only concern tackling litter and graffiti.

We're not talking about invading Poland here.

It's about time our government decided on all domestic matters, as happens in Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey and Gibraltar.

The two parties running the show won a clear majority of votes at the last election.

If we don't like what they're doing, we're mature enough to kick them out the next time around.