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 is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

. 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 or a statement that presents information in an organized format for a specific audience and purpose. Although summaries of reports may be delivered orally, complete reports are usually given in the form of written documen ...

whether the provisions of any bill inappropriately delegate

legislative power A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers o ...

," 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 writing, written, drawing, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of nonfiction, non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ', which denotes ...

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

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 ...

; 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 importan ...

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

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 enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred ...

is often practical − to enable ministers 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 legislative and executive branches of governments in representative democ ...

('Henry VIII powers'). Such enabling

clause In language, a clause is a Constituent (linguistics), constituent or Phrase (grammar), phrase that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic Predicate (grammar), predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject (grammar), ...

s in bills remove legislation from detailed parliamentary scrutiny. As a result, this Select Committee 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 or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, 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 ...

. Bills are accompanied by a special

memorandum A memorandum (: memorandums or memoranda; from the Latin ''memorandum'', "(that) which is to be remembered"), also known as a briefing note, is a Writing, written message that is typically used in a professional setting. Commonly abbreviation, ...

explaining each of the proposed delegations. The memorandum,

published Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

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 judgement, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, as opposed to 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 ...

of its legal adviser. 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 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. Fo ...

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 or ...

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 Regulatory Reform Act 2006.

Membership

As of January 2025, the membership of the committee is as follows:

References

External links