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The House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee made a number of recommendations in its report The impact of Queen's and Prince's Consent on the legislative process, published in March 2014. In its response the Government noted that many of the matters in that report were matters for Parliament, and not the Government. The House of Lords has already approved proposals from its Procedure Committee for change. In this report we consider the relevant proposals from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and make a number of recommendations to the House on the means and timing of signifying consent, and re-signification of consent for a bill carried over into a new session. Specifically, we recommend that:
· the House should endorse the practice that consent need not be re-signified when a bill is carried over from one session to the next;
· the practice of consent being signified in person by a Privy Counsellor should be continued;
· consent, whenever a bill requires it, should always be signified on third reading; and
· the House should endorse the practice that the need for consent to be sought be noted on the order paper as soon as this requirement is known.
We make these recommendations with a view to simplifying the signification process and making it more transparent.
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