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 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
Draft Children (Contact) and Adoption Bill Cm 6462 DfES	2.2.2005	Draft Children (Contact) and Adoption Bill Joint Committee
Draft Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill Cm 6460 DEFRA	10.2.2005	Environment Food and Rural Affairs

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