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"Post-legislative Scrutiny - The Government's Approach"

Leader of the House written statement – made at on 20 March 2008.

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Photo of Harriet Harman Harriet Harman Chair, Modernisation of the House of Commons Committee, Minister of State (Government Equalities Office), The Leader of the House of Commons , Member, Labour Party National Executive Committee, Party Chair, Labour Party, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party

I am pleased to announce that I am today publishing "Post-legislative Scrutiny—The Government's Approach" (Cm 7320).

The new process for post-legislative scrutiny introduces a systematic approach for strengthening the scrutiny of Laws after they have been enacted by Parliament. The aim is to complement the Government's internal departmental scrutiny with parliamentary scrutiny, principally by Committees of the House of Commons, to provide a 'reality check' of new laws after three to five years.

Copies of the document can be obtained from the Vote Office.

Our decisions were informed by the Law Commission report ("Post-legislative Scrutiny"—Cm 6945), published on 25 October 2006, following a request from the Government. We are most grateful to the Commission for its thoughtful and considered review.

House of Commons

The House of Commons is one of the houses of parliament. Here, elected MPs (elected by the "commons", i.e. the people) debate. In modern times, nearly all power resides in this house. In the commons are 650 MPs, as well as a speaker and three deputy speakers.

laws

Laws are the rules by which a country is governed. Britain has a long history of law making and the laws of this country can be divided into three types:- 1) Statute Laws are the laws that have been made by Parliament. 2) Case Law is law that has been established from cases tried in the courts - the laws arise from test cases. The result of the test case creates a precedent on which future cases are judged. 3) Common Law is a part of English Law, which has not come from Parliament. It consists of rules of law which have developed from customs or judgements made in courts over hundreds of years. For example until 1861 Parliament had never passed a law saying that murder was an offence. From the earliest times courts had judged that murder was a crime so there was no need to make a law.