Queen’s Speech

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, I shall not detain your Lordships very long or speak about the merits or demerits of Brexit or of any of the amendments before your Lordships this evening.

I have the honour to chair your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which looks into the policy of every statutory instrument laid before your Lordships to see whether the rationale for the legislative change is sufficiently explained and if the explanation is convincing. We act as a sifting mechanism to identify any instruments that may be of particular interest or flawed in some way. In the last Session, we drew 51 such instruments to the special attention of your Lordships—some 7.7% of the total. Our committee is gratified to see the frequency with which the points of concern set out in our reports are raised by noble Lords in debates and Questions. We take it as a confirmation that we are performing a useful service to the House. We are grateful for departments’ and ministerial responses to our queries, which we believe inform and assist our deliberations and your Lordships’ proceedings. The committee sees instruments laid by almost every department and is therefore well placed to observe and comment on trends in how statutory instruments are presented. In the last year or so, we have been pressing for improvement in the quality of the documents that accompany statutory instruments, precisely with Brexit in mind, to ensure that the content of the legislation is well presented and easily understood. In all this, we are greatly assisted by our excellent advisers.

In relation to Brexit, we are told that up to 1,000 additional items of delegated legislation are expected once the great repeal Bill and associated Brexit Bills are passed. We have much practice in dealing with statutory instruments efficiently and stand ready to assist your Lordships as best we can in accordance with our terms of reference.