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The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006, which comes into effect on 8 January 2007 and replaces almost all of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001, requires changes to be made to the way that draft Orders are scrutinised by the House and specifically by us, as the Committee charged with scrutinising draft Regulatory Reform Orders. This Special Report considers the draft Standing Orders that have been issued by Pat McFadden MP (Cabinet Office Minister) and recommends a number of amendments. The most significant change to the draft Standing Orders concerns providing more opportunities to Members to debate draft Orders. We set out the case for providing us with the power to obtain a debate in a Delegated Legislation Committee on draft Regulatory Reform Orders that we consider to be of sufficient legal and political significance without having to divide or contrive a division. We also call for our current procedures to apply in connection with the draft Orders that we oppose, or do not approve unanimously, namely: that the Government's motion to approve such draft Orders should be debated on the floor of the House. In addition, we set out the case for:
- continuing to allow us to scrutinise a surviving 2001 Act category of statutory instrument (Subordinate Provisions Orders), rather than transferring such Orders to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and losing a power to express an opinion as to the acceptability of those Orders;
- amending the wording in some of the tests that we will apply when scrutinising draft Orders to make them less subjective and a better match with the tests set out in the Act;
- clarifying that the instruction to report within 15 days on every second stage report relates only to unrevised draft Orders; and
- removing the instruction that we automatically provide departments with opportunities to present written or oral evidence at every phase of the scrutiny process.
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