House of Lords: Post-legislative Scrutiny

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, that is the nub of a decision that was taken in March 2008 by the Leader of the House of Commons, committing the then Government to enable post-legislative scrutiny for all Acts of Parliament passed during and after the calendar year of 2005. Since then, six or seven of these memoranda have been published, although many are left in the pipeline. We wait to see what attitude the Select Committees in another place or, indeed, in your Lordships’ House will take to these memoranda.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, is it not particularly important that there should be post-legislative scrutiny in Parliament following this Session, for which the Government have promised—or threatened—a prodigious quantity of legislation, most of which, in the nature of the situation, will be pretty hastily cooked up in Whitehall and which Parliament will have only cursory opportunity to examine properly because of the scale of demands?

[Lord Strathclyde]

That is really rich coming from the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. He supported a Government who, over the past 13 years, gave rise to an outpouring of legislation quite unlike anything that we have ever seen in our history. Constitutional changes were dreamt up on the back of an envelope and introduced to Parliament with minimal thought and discussion and with no pre-announcement.