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Legislative Process

Answer

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.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

HL16470

Session

2017-19

Related items

The legislative process: preparing legislation for Parliament. Constitution Committee (HL) fourth report.
Wednesday, 18 October 2017
Parliamentary committees
House of Lords

Subjects

Legislative process

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk