House of Commons - Deregulation and Regulatory Reform

Select Committee on Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Second Report

The Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee is appointed under

Standing Order No. 141, viz:

Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee

141. — (1) There shall be a select committee, called the Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee, to examine-

(i) every document containing proposals laid before the House under section 3 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 (the 1994 Act) or under section 6 of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 (the 2001 Act);

(ii) every draft order proposed to be made under section 1 of the 1994 Act or section 1 of the 2001 Act; and

(iii) every subordinate provisions order or draft of such an order made or proposed to be made under sections 1 and 4 of the 2001 Act.

(2) The committee shall report to the House, in relation to every proposals document referred to in paragraph 1(i) of this order, either

(a) that a draft order in the same terms as the proposals should be laid before the House; or

(b) that the proposals should be amended before a draft order is laid before the House; or

(3) The committee shall report to the House, in relation to every draft order referred to in paragraph 1(ii) of this order, its recommendation whether the draft order should be approved.

(4) The committee may draw the special attention of the House to any subordinate provisions order or draft order referred to in paragraph 1(iii) of this order, and may report its opinion whether or not the order or draft order should be approved or, as the case may be, annulled.

(5) The committee may report to the House on any matter arising from its consideration of the said proposals, draft orders or subordinate provisions orders.

(6)(A) In its consideration of proposals the committee shall consider in each case whether the proposals-

(a) appear to make an inappropriate use of delegated legislation;

(b) remove or reduce a burden or the authorisation or requirement of a burden;

(d) have been the subject of, and take appropriate account of, adequate consultation;

(e) impose a charge on the public revenues or contain provisions requiring payments to be made to the Exchequer or any government department or to any local or public authority in consideration of any licence or consent or of any services to be rendered, or prescribe the amount of any such charge or payment;

(f) purport to have retrospective effect;

(g) give rise to doubts whether they are intra vires;

(h) require elucidation, are not written in plain English or appear to be defectively drafted;

(i) appear to be incompatible with any obligation resulting from membership of the European Union.

(B) In the case of proposals presented under the 2001 Act, the committee shall also consider whether the proposals-

(j) prevent any person from continuing to exercise any right or freedom which he might reasonably expect to continue to exercise;

(k) satisfy the conditions of proportionality between burdens and benefits set out in sections 1 and 3 of the Act;

(l) satisfy the test of desirability set out in section 3(2)(b) of the Act;

(m) have been the subject of, and take appropriate account of, estimates of increases or reductions in costs or other benefits which may result from their implementation; or

(n) include provisions to be designated in the draft order as subordinate provisions;

and in the case of the latter consideration the committee shall report its opinion whether such a designation should be made, and to what parliamentary proceedings any subordinate provisions orders should be subject.

(7) In its consideration of draft orders, the committee shall consider in each case all such matters set out in paragraph (6) of this order as are relevant and the extent to which the Minister concerned has had regard to any resolution or report of the Committee or to any other representations made during the period for parliamentary consideration.

(8) In its consideration of any subordinate provisions order the committee shall in each case consider whether the special attention of the House should be drawn to it on any of the grounds on which (in accordance with paragraph 1(B) of Standing Order No. 151 (Statutory Instruments (Joint Committee)) the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments may draw the attention of the House to a statutory instrument; and if the committee is of the opinion that any such order or draft order should be annulled, or, as the case may be, should not be approved, they shall report that opinion to the House.

(9) The committee shall consist of eighteen members.

(10) Unless the House otherwise orders, each Member nominated to the committee shall continue to be a member of it for the remainder of the Parliament.

(11) The committee shall have power—

(a) to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom, and to report from time to time;

(b) to appoint specialist advisers either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee's order of reference;

(c) to appoint a sub-committee, of which the quorum shall be two, which shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, and to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom;

(12) The committee and the sub-committee shall have the assistance of the Counsel to the Speaker and, if their Lordships think fit, the Counsel to the Lord Chairman of Committees.

(13) The committee and the sub-committee shall have power to invite Members of the House who are not members of the committee to attend meetings at which witnesses are being examined and such Members may, at the discretion of the chairman, ask questions of those witnesses; but no Member not being of the committee shall otherwise take part in the proceedings of the committee or sub-committee, or be counted in the quorum.

(14) It shall be an instruction to the committee that before reporting either-

(a) that any proposal should be amended before the draft order is laid before the House, or

(b) that the order-making power should not be used in respect of any proposal, or

it shall afford to any government department concerned an opportunity of furnishing orally or in writing to it or to the sub-committee appointed by it such explanations as the department think fit.

(15) It shall be an instruction to the committee that it report on every draft order (not being a subordinate provisions order) not more than fifteen sitting days after the draft order was laid before the House, indicating in the case of draft orders which it recommends should be approved whether its recommendation was agreed without a division.

The present membership of the Committee is as follows:[1]

Labour, Dumfries

Labour, Bury North

Liberal Democrat, Weston-Super-Mare

Labour, Hornchurch

Ulster Unionist Party, Lagan Valley

Conservative, Wycombe

Labour, Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney)

Labour, Rugby and Kenilworth

Labour, Middlesbrough South and Cleveland East

Labour/Co-op, Edmonton

(Labour, Hayes and Harlington