Tag Archives: pre-legislative scrutiny

Strengthening the House

Lord Norton 25/02/2010 – 8:19 pm

As mentioned in an earlier post, I was successful in the ballot for a Thursday debate and my motion - to call attention to the case for enhancing the means available to the House of Lords to scrutinise legislation and public policy - occupied the the first of today's two debates.  The debate was notable for the quality as well as the quantity of speakers.  They included all three party leader […]

Improving the law-making process

Lord Norton 29/03/2009 – 3:49 pm

One of the other meetings I attended this past week was a Hansard Society seminar.  It was the first in a series on 'Making Better Law'.  I gave a paper that examined some of the problems at the heart of the current law-making process. I identified various problems.  One is the sheer volume of legislation.  The problem is not only quantitative (longer bills) but also qualitative (more complex […]

Constitutional Renewal Bill

Lord Norton 28/07/2008 – 4:22 pm

The Joint Committee on the Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill completed work on the draft Bill last Tuesday - the last day of sitting prior to the summer recess.  Though the recommended period is a minimum of three months for a committee to engage in pre-legislative scrutiny, we had under three months to examine what constitutes five bills in one.  We only managed to complete our task by meeting […]

Reforming the legislative process

Lord Norton 26/04/2008 – 6:11 pm

I promised in response to a comment on an earlier post to discuss post-legislative scrutiny.    When I chaired the Constitution Committee of the Lords, we undertook a major inquiry into the legislative process.   We looked at the legislative process holistically, examining not only the process when a Bill is before Parliament but also pre-legislative and post-legislative scrutiny.  There h […]