Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
38th Report of Session 2021–22
What next? The Growing Imbalance between Parliament and the
Executive: End of Session Report 2021–22
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report provides an overview of our work in session 2021–22.
During the height of the pandemic, departments had to meet the
challenge of producing large numbers of coronavirus-related
statutory instruments to very tight timetables and under
difficult working conditions. We recognise these pressures and
acknowledge the work and achievements of the officials who had to
respond to the exceptional demands of the pandemic. However, as
the pressures of the pandemic eased off—this year we considered
126 statutory instruments (SIs) related to COVID-19, a reduction
of two-thirds on the last session—we would have expected
departments to return to normal legislative practices and
diligence when preparing secondary legislation.
We were therefore disappointed with the quality of some of the
secondary legislation and supporting material laid in this
session. We were also concerned about the Government using
practices which curtailed Parliament’s ability to provide
effective scrutiny as part of the legislative process.
These are concerns which we considered in more depth in our
report Government by Diktat, and which we expect to look into
further in the forthcoming session. This report identifies
examples of poor quality and legislative practices from this
session and highlights some areas for improvement, in particular
on:
• Restricting parliamentary scrutiny (paragraphs 7 to 24);
• Failing to provide information on impact (paragraphs 25 to 34);
• Inadequate consultation (paragraphs 35 to 37); • Poor quality
explanation (paragraphs 38 to 43);
• The availability and appropriate use of guidance (paragraphs 44
to 47); and
• Corrections (paragraphs 60 to 64).
In addition to our reports to the House under our terms of
reference, we also provide information paragraphs on instruments
which we consider are likely to be of particular interest to
Parliament and these have prompted, on a number of occasions,
debates in the House (paragraphs 52 to 53).
We welcome submissions with real life experience of organisations
or individuals who may be affected by particular regulations.
Where possible, we publish these submissions as part of our
weekly report (paragraphs 65 to 66).
Effective parliamentary scrutiny will be of particular importance
in the context of the so-called Brexit Freedoms Bill, which,
according to the Government, will “make it easier to amend or
remove outdated retained EU law” and will “accompany a major
cross-government drive to reform, repeal and replace outdated EU
law”. Given the volume of retained EU law, it is important that
Parliament’s role in scrutinising legislation—especially as
regards secondary legislation—should not be in any way weakened
by the Government’s ambitions for reform in this area.
Our supporting team
Finally, we would like to thank the team who support the work of
the Committee: Philipp Mende and Jane White, the Committee
Advisers, Emily Pughe, Committee Operations Officer, and our
Clerk, Christine Salmon Percival. We would also add Lara Orija,
Media and Communications Officer, who joins us at every meeting.
As this report demonstrates, the workload of the Committee is
challenging in the range and complexity of policy areas
considered and the number of instruments that come before us. Our
scrutiny work requires the team supporting us to have
extraordinary flexibility and resilience, exceptional attention
to detail, and a keen instinct for identifying, amongst the
morass of instruments and documentation, which instruments are of
significance, the issues they raise and the questions that need
to be asked. Their sustained hard and skilful work is critical to
the ability of the Committee and of the House to perform their
fundamental role in holding the Government to account by
effective scrutiny of secondary legislation. We owe them a debt
of gratitude.
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