Statutory Instruments: Select Committee (Hansard, 26 November 1986)

§ The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare)
My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That a Select Committee of seven Lords be appointed to join with a Committee appointed by the Commons to consider—

(1) Every instrument which is laid before each House of Parliament and upon which proceedings may be or might have been taken in either House of Parliament, in pursuance of an Act of Parliament; being

(a) statutory instrument, or a draft of a statutory instrument;

(b) a scheme, or an amendment of a scheme, or draft thereof, requiring approval by statutory instrument;

(c) any other instrument (whether or not in draft), where the proceedings in pursuance of an Act of Parliament are proceedings by way of an affirmative resolution; or

(d) an order subject to special parliamentary procedure;

but excluding any Order in Council or draft Order in Council made or proposed to be made under paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Northern Ireland Act 1974.

(2) Every general statutory instrument not within the foregoing classes, and not required to be laid before or to be subject to proceedings in the Commons only, but not including Measures under the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 and instruments made under such Measures; with a view to determining whether the special attention of the House should be drawn to it on any of the following grounds—

(i) that it imposes a charge on the public revenues or contains provisions requiring payments to be made to the Exchequer or any government department or to any local or public authority in consideration of any licence or consent or of any services to be rendered, or prescribes the amount of any such charge or payments;

(ii) that it is made in pursuance of any enactment containing specific provisions excluding it from challenge in the courts, either at all times or after the expiration of a specific period;

(iii) that it purports to have retrospective effect where the parent statute confers no express authority so to provide;

(iv) that there appears to have been unjustifiable delay in the publication or in the laying of it before Parliament;

(v) that there appears to have been unjustifiable delay in sending a notification under the proviso to subsection (1) of Section 4 of the 546 Statutory Instruments Act 1946, where an Instrument has come into operation before it has been laid before Parliament;

(vi) that there appears to be a doubt whether it is infra vires or that it appears to make some unusual or unexpected use of the powers conferred by the statute under which it is made;

(vii) that for any special reasons its form or purport call for elucidation;

(viii) that its drafting appears to be defective; or

on any other ground which does not impinge on its merits or on the policy behind it, and to report their decision with the reasons thereof in any particular case.

§ Lord Harmar-Nicholls
My Lords, there are seven noble Lords being nominated to serve on this Joint Committee. I presume that, if we are sending seven, the rest of the committee will be more than that. Is not a quorum of two rather small for a committee of that size? And if the two, if this quorum remains, come solely from the other place, would that be authoritative—or even if it were two out of seven noble Lords? At the minute, does it not appear to be slightly out of balance?

§ The Chairman of Committees
My Lords, this is a committee which has existed for a very long time. It is a Joint Committee with the other place, and there are seven Members from each House. The quorum is two. I cannot go any further than that.

§ Lord Harmar-Nicholls
It is too small, my Lords.
On Question, Motion agreed to; and it was ordered that a message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

Airedale, L.	Denington, B.
Arran, E.	Dilhorne, V.
Brooks of Tremorfa, L.	Shaughnessy, L.
Cullen of Ashbourne, L.