Constitution Committee
Delegated Legislation and Parliament: A response to the Strathclyde Review

9th Report of Session 2015-16 - 23 March 2016 - HL Paper 116

Contents

Summary

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Background

The scale of delegated legislation

Parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation

Scrutiny by the House of Commons

Scrutiny by the House of Lords

The Draft Tax Credits (Income Thresholds and Determination of Rates) (Amendments) Regulations 2015

Fatal and non-fatal motions in the House of Lords

Conventions and established practice in relation to delegated legislation

Financial privilege

Chapter 3: The remit of the Strathclyde Review

The relationship between Parliament and the Executive

The proper scope of delegated legislation

The House of Commons

The “role of the House of Lords with respect to delegated
legislation”

Chapter 4: The Strathclyde Review

Financial privilege and delegated legislation

The “ability of elected Governments to secure their business in Parliament”

The options in the Review

The effects of weakening the Lords’ powers over delegated
legislation

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Chapter 5: The way forward

Summary of conclusions and recommendations

Appendix 1: Delegated legislation in numbers

Figure 1: Total number of the UK Statutory Instruments,
by year, 1950–2015

Figure 2: Instruments subject to divisions on fatal motions,
May 1997 to February 2016

Table 1: House of Lords business relating to delegated legislation, 2004–05 to 2014–15





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