Legislative Process

(asked on 18th June 2019) - View Source

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what proportion of the recommendations in the report of the House of Lords Constitution Committee The Legislative Process: Preparing Legislation for Parliament (HL Paper 19), published in October 2017, they have not accepted and implemented.


Answered by
Lord Young of Cookham Portrait
Lord Young of Cookham
This question was answered on 2nd July 2019

The then Leader of the House of Commons responded to the Committee's report on 26 January 2018. In her response she committed to asking officials to consider carefully where the Committee's recommendations can be factored into our processes.


The Committee made two recommendations that the Government cannot support, relating to consultations and a legislative standards committee. First, on consultations, the Government agrees that timelines for consultations should be proportionate and realistic to allow stakeholders sufficient time to provide a considered response. However, within these parameters, consultation lengths should be adaptable to the complexity of policy and legislative. Second, on a legislative standards committee, the Government is committed to bringing forward well-drafted legislation of the highest quality but does not believe a legislative standards committee would add to this process.The PBL Committee already serves as a strict gatekeeper to legislation being introduced to Parliament. Furthermore, it is generally not possible to separate views on the standards of a bill from views on the appropriateness of the underlying policy, for which the bill stages in each House already provide the appropriate forum for debate and scrutiny. The Committee’s remaining four recommendations continue to be useful to Government and, as the then Leader of the House of Commons said in her response, are being factored into our processes as appropriate.

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