ABSTRACT
The Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee considers
every SI laid before the House and draws to its special attention
those of policy, political or procedural interest or defect. Not
only does this bring each week's significant SIs conveniently
to the attention of members but, we hope, it reassures the House
that no secondary legislation escapes the net of parliamentary
scrutiny. This session, we considered 1,731 SIs and reported 41
(22%) of the affirmative and 139 (9%) of the negative instruments.
We rely on members of the House to pursue any instrument
which we report: 37 (27%) of the negative SIs which we reported
were later engaged with in the House. But we do correspond with
the Government on particular SIs, at both ministerial and official
levels. This might be to solicit further information or to comment
on what we consider to be good or bad practice. This engagement
directly with Government is improving secondary legislative practice.
We tend to publish such correspondence during the session, to
inform the House's debates, but that which remains unpublished
is to be found at Appendix 2.
This session, we conducted a major inquiry into the
management of secondary legislation[1]
and we use this Report to publish the Government's response (Appendix
3). We hope to secure a debate on our Report early in the new
session. We note however that the Government response leaves much
to the initiative of individual departments: we will next session
monitor how departments respond to our Report through a series
of oral evidence sessions.
That Report remains the most comprehensive statement
of our concerns, but we here make some further observations about
the statutory instruments (SIs) that we have seen this session:
poor planning affects the House's ability to
give proper scrutiny to secondary legislation: the 225 SIs laid
in the immediate run-up to the end of the financial year (i.e.
in March) were at least twice as many as laid in any other month
(Appendix 1);
the Explanatory Memoranda (EMs) which departments
provide are generally of a high standard. Frequent shortcomings
include the use of technical terms without explanation and inadequate
accounts of the consultation exercise. Where SIs transpose Community
obligations, especially when they create criminal offences, we
consider that they should be clear from the face of the instrument
itself. We also look for evidence of what guidance is provided
to stakeholders to explain the new obligation to ensure that it
is fulfilled. We welcome departmental websites which provide informal
consolidated texts of secondary legislation for free public access;
although lower than before, corrections remained
high 3.58% (Appendix 4). Breaches of the 21-day rule also remained
high: DEFRA reached 10%.
We have also taken steps to raise awareness of our
work:
we have provided Guidance for departments
on the content of EMs as a clear statement of our priorities and
we hold departments to account against this standard;
we have encouraged comment on individual SIs
from interest groups: such contributions add to our understanding
of the issues and we have published them where they have added
value to the House's consideration of the instrument. Our website[2]
has information on how to make useful submissions to the Committee;
our weekly email summary to interested members
gives the headline paragraph for each instrument reported, with
the pdf file of the complete Report. Those who wish to receive
this email can contact merits@parliament.uk.
1 29th Report (2005 - 06) HL Paper 149 Back
2
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/merits.cfm Back
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