The Work of the Committee in 2007-08 - Human Rights Joint Committee

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Human Rights Joint Committee Publications

Human Rights Joint Committee - Second Report
The Work of the Committee in 2007-08

Here you can browse the report together with the Proceedings of the Committee. The published report was ordered by the House of Lords and the House of Commons to be printed 16 December 2008.

Contents

Terms of Reference

Summary
1 Overview

Introduction
Our remit and the core tasks
Overview of our work

2 The state of human rights in the UK

Introduction: response to last year's report
Human rights in 2007-08

3 Legislative scrutiny

Scope of legislative scrutiny
Government amendments to Bills
Statutory Instruments
Pre- and post-legislative scrutiny
Timeliness
Recurring themes
Quality of Explanatory Notes
Committee amendments to Government Bills
Civil society input into legislative scrutiny work

4 Thematic inquiries and other work

Core task 1: examination of policy proposals
Core task 2: emerging policy
Core task 3: draft bills
Core task 4: specific output from the department
Core tasks 7 and 8: scrutiny of relevant public bodies and major appointments
Core task 9: implementation of legislation and major policy initiatives
Core task 10: debates in the House

5 Working practices

Recent changes
Informal meetings and visits
Following-up previous work
Relations with government
Informing Parliament
Outreach
International dimension

Formal Minutes
Annex 1: Sessional Return 2007-08
Annex 2: Summary of human rights developments in 2007-08
Annex 3: Committee amendments to bills
Written Evidence

Letter to Liam Byrne MP, Minister of State, Home Office, on the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme, dated 25 June 2008
Letter from Liam Byrne MP, Minister of State, Home Office, on the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme, dated 8 September 2008
Letter to Rt Hon Jacqui Smith MP, Secretary of State, Home Office, on the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme, dated 17 December 2008
Letter from the Minister of State for Health Services to Stephen O'Brien MP on the Health and Social Care Bill dated 29 July 2008
Letter to the Chairman from the National Secular Society on the Education and Skills Bill dated 12 September 2008
Letter to Vernon Coaker MP, Parliamentary Under-secretary of State, Home Office, on Human Trafficking, dated 17 September 2008
Letter from Alan Campbell MP, Parliamentary Under-secretary, Home Office, on Human Trafficking, dated 7 October 2008
Letter to Alan Campbell MP, Parliamentary Under-secretary, Home Office, on Human Trafficking, dated 9 December 2008
Letter from Rt Hon John Hutton MP, Secretary of State for Defence on UN Convention Against Torture, dated October 2008
Letter from the Chairman to Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, dated 5 November 2008
Letter from the Chairman to the Rt Hon Jacqui Smith MP, Home Secretary, dated 11 November 2008
Letter from Rt Hon Jacqui Smith MP to the Chairman, Home Secretary, dated 10 November 2008

List of Witnesses
List of Written Evidence
Reports from the Joint Committee on Human Rights in this Parliament

Oral Evidence
14 October 2008
28 October 2008

© Parliamentary copyright 2009
Prepared 26 January 2009