This Special Report
6. The Committee's terms of reference, so far as
relevant, call for it to report to the House on any matter arising
from its consideration of Regulatory Reform Orders. It follows
that its primary function, in considering the text of Part 1 of
the Bill, is to build on its experience of those orders so as
to estimate the implications for committee procedure in relation
to the new types of draft order that the Bill envisages.
7. In the light of the constitutional significance
of Part 1, we thought that it would be appropriate for us to scrutinise
that Part in detail and if possible to report our views to the
House in time for its Second Reading, which is expected to be
held on 9 February. In fact, we had sought more time to scrutinise
it and had thought that the technical nature of much of the Bill
and its high constitutional significance would have suggested
that it would have been an ideal candidate for pre-legislative
scrutiny. However, the Government rejected our request for the
Bill to be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, notwithstanding
the fact that the 2001 Act itself was subject to pre-legislative
scrutiny. We publish our correspondence below[7].
When in oral evidence we asked the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet
Office, Jim Murphy, why the Bill was not offered for pre-legislative
scrutiny, he told us that pre-legislative scrutiny last time had
not provided the tools needed by the Government and that they
might be more likely to be provided this time by not having pre-legislative
scrutiny.[8]
8. In December, and in anticipation of the Government's
likely decision not to subject the Bill to pre-legislative scrutiny,
we wrote to the Leader of the House requesting that the Second
Reading debate not be held before mid February on the grounds
that we be given sufficient time to scrutinise the Bill in detail
and report our views to the House. In addition to requesting a
longer period for scrutiny of the Bill, we also requested that
our Committee's remit be widened on the grounds that under our
current Standing Orders we are only allowed to look at proposals,
draft orders and "matters arising from our consideration
of proposals" for regulatory reform and that we would prefer
a less restrictive remit to allow us to consider all aspects of
the Bill.[9]
9. In his response (16 January), to our requests
the Leader of the House told us that he could not confirm the
precise date of the Second Reading but informed us that it would
not be before 6 February, allowing us only 15 sitting days in
which to produce a detailed and analytical report on the Bill.
As regards widening our remit, the Leader of the House informed
us that it would not be possible to introduce changes to our Standing
Orders in the timescale necessary for consideration of the Bill.[10]
10. Given our clearly stated interest in scrutinising
the Bill we were naturally concerned that the Government failed
to agree to any of our requests for a suitable period for detailed
parliamentary scrutiny or for revising our remit in time. Nevertheless,
despite the constraints of our current remit and the shortage
of time, we have produced what we consider to be a detailed analysis
of the provisions of Part 1 of the Bill, in a manner that falls
within our current remit. We discuss the implications of the Bill
for revising our Standing Orders in more detail in the final section
of this Report.
11. This Special Report sets out our initial thinking
on the Bill's major provisions and identifies those areas of the
Bill that in our view require special attention by the House.
Although we have no wish needlessly to delay the Government's
efforts to eliminate unnecessary regulations and simplify legislation,
we were surprised that the parliamentary timetable for the scrutiny
of this major Bill has been so compressed. We note that the hurried
parliamentary timetable is in contrast with the Cabinet Office's
delay in launching its review into the workings of the 2001 Act,
which prompted the Bill. That review, which it originally promised
would be held within three years of the Act (i.e. by April 2004),
was not completed until July 2005, a delay of 15 months.
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