Chapter 1: Introduction
1.The Office of Parliamentary Counsel describe ‘good law’ as law that is “necessary, effective, clear, coherent and accessible.”1 The processes by which legislation is created and prepared by Government and subsequently scrutinised and enacted by Parliament are key to ensuring that new law meets these criteria.
2.In 2004, this Committee published a report on Parliament and the Legislative Process.2 In that report, we made a number of significant recommendations about the way Parliament and the Government handled legislation. Some of those recommendations were followed by now well-embedded changes to the legislative process, such as the public evidence stage of Public Bill Committees in the Commons, and an expectation that every Act will have a post-legislative review memorandum produced by its relevant Government department within 3–6 years of its commencement. Others, such as a presumption that all bills should be published in draft ahead of their introduction to Parliament (along with consequential changes to how the legislative programme is timetabled), have not been adopted.
3.In 2016, we decided to launch a further inquiry into the legislative process in which we have taken a broader view of the law-making process. Whilst the term ‘legislative process’ is most commonly used to refer to the sequence of steps by which laws are formally adopted by Parliament, we have considered as a whole the different stages and procedures by which laws are developed, drafted, scrutinised, agreed to and disseminated. Our inquiry is broken down into four distinct parts which each address a stage or significant factor in the legislative process. These are:
- Preparing legislation for Parliament;
- The passage of legislation through Parliament;
- The delegation of powers; and,
- After Royal Assent.
4.In this report, we consider stage 1: preparing legislation for Parliament. This includes matters relating to policy development and consultation, legislative drafting and pre-legislative scrutiny. Whilst our inquiry focuses on the legislative process, we have included in this report a range of conclusions and recommendations relating to the policy development process because we consider that the quality of the process by which is policy is conceived and developed is inextricably linked with the quality of the ensuing legislation.
5.During our inquiry we encountered a number of issues that cut across the whole legislative process or across two or more of these different stages—these include, for example, matters relating to the drafting of legislation, bill documentation, the use of technology and public consultation. When considering these matters we have attempted, so far as possible, to separate out issues that relate specifically to the preparation of legislation before it is introduced in Parliament, leaving issues that might more appropriately be considered in the context of other stages of the legislative process to be addressed in the subsequent stages of our inquiry.
6.We heard from 26 witnesses during our inquiry, and received 28 pieces of written evidence. We are grateful to everyone who submitted written material or gave evidence to us in person.
1 Office of Parliamentary Counsel, When Laws Become Too Complex, March 2013: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/when-laws-become-too-complex/when-laws-become-too-complex [accessed 19 October 2017]
2 Constitution Committee, Parliament and the Legislative Process (14th Report, Session 2003–04, HL Paper 173)