Members of the public will be given the right to nominate unpopular laws they want scrapped in the Your Freedom initiative that has been launched by Nick Clegg.
It is intended to begin a shift of power away from the state to the people. Members of the public will be able to propose ways to get rid of pointless regulation and unnecessary bureaucracy and reduce state intrusion into everyday life.
"We are turning things on its head. The traditional way of doing things is that government tells people what to do. That is the old way of doing things. We are saying, 'Tell us what you don't want us to do'."
Mr Clegg said letting dormant laws accumulate on the statute book sends out the "wrong signal" and there is plenty of "old stuff" that should be dropped.
He said the previous government had gone too far in invading people's privacy: "Did that make us safer? No, it didn't necessarily make us safer, so we've got to get the balance right."
He said that any minister who proposes a new regulation will also have to propose an existing law to be taken off the statute book.
Ideas submitted in the online consultation process will be taken into account in the drafting of a Freedom Bill to be published this autumn with the aim of rolling back unnecessary regulation.
