Transparency and Accountability in Subordinate Legislation Contents

Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments

Current membership

House of Lords

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Conservative)

Lord Lexden (Conservative)

Baroness Meacher (Crossbench)

Lord Morris of Handsworth (Labour)

Lord Rowe-Beddoe (Crossbench)

Lord Rowlands (Labour)

Baroness Scott of Needham Market (Liberal Democrat)

House of Commons

Derek Twigg MP (Labour, Halton) (Chair)

Dan Carden MP (Labour, Liverpool, Walton)

Vicky Foxcroft MP (Labour, Lewisham, Deptford)

Patrick Grady MP (Scottish National Party, Glasgow North)

John Lamont MP (Conservative, Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)

Julia Lopez MP (Conservative, Hornchurch and Upminster)

Sir Robert Syms MP (Conservative, Poole)

Powers

The full constitution and powers of the Committee are set out in House of Commons Standing Order No. 151 and House of Lords Standing Order No. 73, available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk/jcsi.

Remit

The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments (JCSI) is appointed to consider statutory instruments made in exercise of powers granted by Act of Parliament. Instruments not laid before Parliament are included within the Committee’s remit; but local instruments and instruments made by devolved administrations are not considered by JCSI unless they are required to be laid before Parliament.

The role of the JCSI, whose membership is drawn from both Houses of Parliament, is to assess the technical qualities of each instrument that falls within its remit and to decide whether to draw the special attention of each House to any instrument on one or more of the following grounds:

  1. that it imposes, or sets the amount of, a charge on public revenue or that it requires payment for a licence, consent or service to be made to the Exchequer, a government department or a public or local authority, or sets the amount of the payment;
  2. that its parent legislation says that it cannot be challenged in the courts;
  3. that it appears to have retrospective effect without the express authority of the parent legislation;
  4. that there appears to have been unjustifiable delay in publishing it or laying it before Parliament;
  5. that there appears to have been unjustifiable delay in sending a notification under the proviso to section 4(1) of the Statutory Instruments Act 1946, where the instrument has come into force before it has been laid;
  6. that there appears to be doubt about whether there is power to make it or that it appears to make an unusual or unexpected use of the power to make;
  7. that its form or meaning needs to be explained;
  8. that its drafting appears to be defective;
  9. any other ground which does not go to its merits or the policy behind it.

The Committee usually meets weekly when Parliament is sitting.

Publications

The reports of the Committee are published by Order of both Houses. All publications of the Committee are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/jcsi.

Committee staff

The current staff of the Committee are Mike Winter (Commons Clerk), Jane White (Lords Clerk) and Liz Booth (Committee Assistant). Advisory Counsel: Daniel Greenberg, Klara Banaszak, Peter Brooksbank, Philip Davies and Vanessa MacNair (Commons); James Cooper, Nicholas Beach, John Crane and Ché Diamond (Lords).

Contacts

All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA. The telephone number for general inquiries is: 020 7219 2026; the Committee’s email address is: jcsi@parliament.uk.





Published: 12 June 2018