The House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has published its first report on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill.
Drawing attention to the “excessively wide law-making powers” the Bill gives to Ministers; the report recommends that Ministers should not have an “unfettered discretion” to decide whether the wide-ranging secondary legislation likely to stem from the Bill should be subject to the full scrutiny of the affirmative procedure or the less robust negative procedure.
Instead, the Committee recommends a new procedure that, where the Minister proposes the negative procedure, a Committee of each House, or a joint Committee of both Houses, should be given 10 days to overturn the Minister’s proposal and upgrade scrutiny to the affirmative procedure.
The proposed new sifting mechanism is important because a piece of secondary legislation subject to the affirmative procedure does not become law until both Houses of Parliament have agreed it while an instrument subject to the negative procedure will automatically become law unless either House votes it down.