The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (formerly the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee) is a select committee of 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 ...

that refers secondary legislation, such as

statutory instruments 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 ...

, to the House that it considers interesting or important. This is unlike the

Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments is a joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The remit of the committee is to scrutinise all statutory instruments made in exercise of powers granted by Acts of Parliament. Instruments l ...

and Commons

Select Committee on Statutory Instruments The Select Committee on Statutory Instruments is a Select committee (United Kingdom), select committee of the British House of Commons, House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The remit of the committee is to scrutinise statutor ...

, which only scrutinise instruments for legal and drafting defects. The specific criteria used by the committee are whether the legislation— # is politically or legally important or gives rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House # may be inappropriate in view of changed circumstances since the enactment of the parent Act # may inappropriately implement European Union legislation # may imperfectly achieve its policy objectives. The committee adopted its current name on 15 May 2012 principally because of the addition of Public Bodies Orders under the

Public Bodies Act 2011 The Public Bodies Act 2011c 24 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. I ...

. Due to the number of additional instruments specifically related to

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...

, the committee expanded into two sub-committees from October 2018 until April 2019.

Membership

As of January 2023, the membership of the committee is:

References

External links

The records of the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee are held by the UK Parliamentary Archives
{{UKParliamentCommittees Committees of the House of Lords Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom