Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 1:41 pm on 3 September 2013.

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Photo of Graham Allen Graham Allen Chair, Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, Chair, Political and Constitutional Reform Committee 1:41, 3 September 2013

We can all swap stories about who did or did not do pre-legislative scrutiny, but let us have a principled view that it is wrong not pre-legislatively to scrutinise a Bill. The way to do that is to put it in our Standing Orders that normally—apart from emergencies, when the Speaker writes a warrant stating that, because we need to get something through fairly quickly, part of the process can be dispensed with—it will be standard practice to have pre-legislative scrutiny. Had we done so on this occasion, we would probably be in danger of arriving at a consensus on the Bill.