The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee is a committee of UK parliamentarians. Members are drawn from the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

. The committee has several primary functions.

Orders

The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee is appointed by the House of Lords in each session with orders of reference "to

report A report is a document that presents information in an organized format for a specific audience and purpose. Although summaries of reports may be delivered orally, complete reports are almost always in the form of written documents. Usage In ...

whether the provisions of any bill inappropriately

delegate Delegate or delegates may refer to: * Delegate, New South Wales, a town in Australia * Delegate (CLI), a computer programming technique * Delegate (American politics), a representative in any of various political organizations * Delegate (Unit ...

legislative power A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known as p ...

, or whether they subject the exercise of legislative power to an inappropriate level of parliamentary

scrutiny Scrutiny (French: ''scrutin''; Late Latin: ''scrutinium''; from ''scrutari'', meaning "those who search through piles of rubbish in the hope of finding something of value" and originally from the Latin "scruta," meaning "broken things, rags, or ...

; to report on

document A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ''Documentum'', which denotes a "teaching" or ...

s and draft orders laid before

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

under the Regulatory Reform Act 2001; and to perform, in respect of such documents and orders and

subordinate A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...

provisions orders laid under that Act, the functions performed in respect of other instruments by the Joint Committee on

Statutory Instrument In many countries, a statutory instrument is a form of delegated legislation. United Kingdom Statutory instruments are the principal form of delegated or secondary legislation in the United Kingdom. National government Statutory instrument ...

s."

Rationale

Parliament often and increasingly confers powers on the executive to make delegated (or secondary) legislation. The purpose of such

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolled bill, enrolling, enactment of a bill, enacting, or promulgation, promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous Government, governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law i ...

is often

practical Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...

- to enable

ministers Minister may refer to: * Minister (Christianity), a Christian cleric ** Minister (Catholic Church) * Minister (government), a member of government who heads a ministry (government department) ** Minister without portfolio, a member of governme ...

to make provision at a level of detail inappropriate for inclusion in the Act, or designed to meet changing circumstances. But the powers delegated can also be more substantial - enabling ministers to fill in large gaps left by so-called 'skeleton bills', or to amend and even

repeal A repeal (O.F. ''rapel'', modern ''rappel'', from ''rapeler'', ''rappeler'', revoke, ''re'' and ''appeler'', appeal) is the removal or reversal of a law. There are two basic types of repeal; a repeal with a re-enactment is used to replace the law ...

primary legislation Primary legislation and secondary legislation (the latter also called delegated legislation or subordinate legislation) are two forms of law, created respectively by the legislature, legislative and executive (government), executive branches of ...

('Henry VIII powers'). Such enabling

clause In language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb with ...

s in bills remove legislation from detailed parliamentary scrutiny. As a result, this

Select Committee Select committee may refer to: *Select committee (parliamentary system), a committee made up of a small number of parliamentary members appointed to deal with particular areas or issues *Select or special committee (United States Congress) *Select ...

was set up.

Working practices

The committee receives all bills introduced in either House when they reach the Lords. There is no equivalent

committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...

in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

. Bills are accompanied by a special

memorandum A memorandum ( : memoranda; abbr: memo; from the Latin ''memorandum'', "(that) which is to be remembered") is a written message that is typically used in a professional setting. Commonly abbreviated "memo," these messages are usually brief and ...

explaining each of the proposed delegations. The memorandum,

published Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

with the committee's report, identifies each of the delegations; describes their purpose; explains why the matter has been left to delegated legislation; and explains the degree of parliamentary control provided for each, and why it is thought appropriate. The committee also has the benefit of an

opinion An opinion is a judgment, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, rather than facts, which are true statements. Definition A given opinion may deal with subjective matters in which there is no conclusive finding, or it may deal with f ...

of its

legal adviser Legal advice is the giving of a professional or formal opinion regarding the substance or procedure of the law in relation to a particular factual situation. The provision of legal advice will often involve analyzing a set of facts and advising a p ...

. The committee then examines whether the bill or its parts are appropriate in terms of delegations. In some cases, parts of bills are declared inappropriate. More frequently, recommendations are made to increase the level of parliamentary scrutiny over a particular delegation. Since the passage of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001, the remit of the committee, and its name, have been extended. It is now the select committee on

delegated powers The enumerated powers (also called expressed powers, explicit powers or delegated powers) of the United States Congress are the powers granted to the federal government of the United States by the United States Constitution. Most of these powers a ...

and

regulatory Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. For ...

reform. In the case of Regulatory Reform Orders they do not examine the

policy Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an organ ...

proposed, but whether the statutory tests of the 2001 Act have been met, particularly whether the orders actually reduce regulatory burdens. They also consider whether the proposal is appropriate to be delivered by secondary legislation and at times conclude that this is not the case. Parliament's work in this area is set to expand greatly, with the passage of the

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 (c51) (LRRA) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was enacted to replace the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 (RRA). The Act was and remains very controversial, because of a perception ...

Members

As of May 2022, the membership of the committee is as follows:

References

External links