Government Response: Work of the Committee in Session 2022–23
1.At the end of October 2023, we published our Report on the Work of the Committee in Session 2022–23.1 Drawing on the scrutiny of 937 instruments laid before Parliament in that period, we concluded that “our overall impression of this session remains that we have too frequently had to ask basic questions about the policy, its intended effects or expected impact”. We were particularly disappointed to note that, despite the well-evidenced criticism in our earlier Interim Report,2 the general quality of the explanatory material presented to Parliament in the second half of the session remained poor. This was despite the Government’s very positive response to the Interim Report’s findings, which included launching several initiatives to encourage ownership by senior officials and ministers of the work needed to improve departments’ performance on secondary legislation.
2.The Government’s response to our report on the complete Session 2022–23, published in full in Appendix 1, recognises “the need for robust, accurate and comprehensive supporting documents and adherence to good processes”. The response sets out in more detail a range of measures the Government is introducing to improve the quality of secondary legislation and explanatory material. This includes a revised template for Explanatory Memoranda (EMs) and supporting guidance, both of which have now been published.3 We welcome the strong support from the Government “to ensure that the information departments provide to Parliament is of a consistent, high-quality standard”.
3.We concluded in both our 2022–23 reports that senior leadership is important, and that it must focus not only on the flow of legislation and the timely delivery of a department’s programme of legislation through Parliament, but also on its quality. Every EM is signed off by a minister and senior official (the “Senior Responsible Owner”) to say that it is fit for purpose, but too often we see legislation where the EM has simply not met this standard. We therefore welcome the Government’s intention to hold meetings of all SI ministers “at least twice a year”, to discuss and share best practice and to ensure a more consistent approach across government. We also welcome the commitment to convene at least one meeting of Senior Responsible Owners. We hope this will be a significant step in ensuring that the improvements the Government is making are implemented successfully across departments.
4.We have also expressed concern in the past4 about the need for proper assessment of the likely costs and benefits of legislation as part of the policy design. The Government announced a new Better Regulation Framework for conducting these assessments in September 2023 with a one-year transitional period. No examples of the new form of Impact Assessment have yet been published; we will be monitoring the outcome carefully to see whether it delivers the improvements the Government anticipates.
5.These commitments and initiatives will take time to embed and deliver progress. The weekly reports we have published in session 2023–24 so far show that the need for improvement remains pressing: we continue to see examples of inadequate explanatory material,5 missing impact information6 and flawed policy design.7 We will therefore continue to monitor departmental performance. We are grateful for the Leaders’ offer to talk to us about these issues in a few months, by which time progress towards improving the quality of explanatory material should be apparent.
1 SLSC, Work of the Committee in Session 2022–23 (56th Report, Session 2022–23, HL Paper 264).
2 SLSC, Interim Report on the Work of the Committee in Session 2022–23 (42nd Report, Session 2022–23, HL Paper 205).
3 Cabinet Office, ‘Explanatory Memorandum: Template and Guidance’ (2 January 2024): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/explanatory-memorandum-template-and-guidance [accessed 15 January 2024].
4 SLSC, Losing Impact: why the Government’s impact assessment system is failing Parliament and the public, (12th Report, Session 2022–23, HL Paper 62).
5 Explanatory Memorandum, Private Crossings (Signs and Barriers) Regulations 2023 (SI ), , (Session 2023–24, HL Paper 7).
6 Draft Explanatory Memorandum, The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: Border Security) Regulations 2023 and linked SIs, 3rd Report (Session 2023–24, HL Paper 13).