Schedule 1
Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [Lords]
11:15 am
David Kidney (PPS (Rt Hon Rosie Winterton, Minister of State), Department for Transport; Stafford, Labour)
The debate has raised an interesting point, and I am as surprised as the hon. Gentleman that major bodies, such as Ofsted and Natural England, send reports to the Secretary of State, who then apparently has no time limit at all in which to lay them before Parliament. That is a serious omission in Parliament’s administration. If we think of something such as a Select Committee report, Ministers are required by convention, rather than a rule, to reply within two months. That would perhaps get us over the Minister’s main objection about recesses. Does the hon. Gentleman think that if he presses the amendment to a vote in the Committee, whatever the result, maybe the Procedure Committee ought to be looking more generally at all such reports and a time scale for laying them before Parliament?