Draft Bills currently under consideration

As part of the reforms to the legislative process initiated by the Modernisation Committee, the government now publishes a number of bills each session in draft form, before they are introduced into parliament as formal bills. This enables consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny before a bill is issued formally.

Increasingly, it had become the practice in recent sessions for the House to refer these to a joint committee of the Commons and Lords appointed for the specific purpose of examining and reporting on a named draft bill. On occasions a draft bill may be referred to one of the departmental select committees or a select committee appointed for that specific purpose.

Listed below are draft bills currently under consideration. Further information on draft bills, including those from previous sessions can be viewed on the Parliament website at http://www.parliament.uk/bills/draftbills.cfm. This page links to electronic copies of the draft bills and related publications including select committee reports on the draft bills.

Title/Paper No./Govt. Department	Date Published	Committee	Committee Report (Date Published/Paper No.)
Draft Criminal Defence Service Bill Cm 6194 Constitutional Affairs	17.5.2004	Constitutional Affairs	27.7.2004 HC 746-I 2003/04
Draft Transport (Wales) Bill Cm 6195 Wales Office	27.5.2004	Welsh Affairs Committee	19.7.2004 HC 759 2003/04
Draft Charities Bill Cm 6199 Home Office	27.5.2004	Joint Committee on the Draft Charities Bill	30.9.2004 HC 660-I 2003/04 HL Paper 167-I
Draft Animal Welfare Bill Cm 6252 DEFRA	14.7.2004	Environment Food and Rural Affairs	8.12.2004 HC 52 2004/05
Draft Regional Assemblies Bill Cm 6285 ODPM	22.7.2004	Office of the Deputy Prime Minister	5.1.2005 HC 62-I 2004/05
Draft Mental Health Bill Cm 6305-I Department of Health	8.9.2004	Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill

The Government has responded to the following Select Committee reports on Draft Bills

The Draft Charities Bill - Cm 6440 £5 ISBN 010 1644027