This bill inserts a new section into the Statutory Instruments Act 1946 allowing the House of Lords to withhold approval of a draft statutory instrument while it communicates specific concerns to the House of Commons. The Commons must then vote to reject those concerns or ask the minister to amend the instrument; if the Commons requests amendments the minister has a defined window to withdraw or withdraw and re‑lay the instrument.
Separately, the bill gives ministers and other makers a limited power to correct drafting errors in instruments within a short timeframe after final approval, provided the correction does not change the instrument’s meaning. It also adjusts two numeric references in section 7 of the 1946 Act and sets the new Act to commence six months after Royal Assent.
The changes are procedural but shift how concerns over delegated legislation are escalated and how minor drafting defects are remedied, with practical effects for departments, parliamentary services, and those regulated by SIs.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill adds section 6A to the 1946 Act enabling the House of Lords to withhold approval of a draft statutory instrument while notifying the Commons of its concerns; the Commons may reject the concerns or request amendments. If the Commons requests amendments, the minister must withdraw or withdraw and re‑lay the instrument within 40 days. The bill also creates section 7A permitting makers to correct non‑meaning‑changing errors within 40 days of final approval and requires corrected copies to be printed and published.
Who It Affects
Directly affected parties include ministers and civil service teams who draft and lay statutory instruments, the House of Lords and House of Commons during parliamentary scrutiny, Parliamentary Counsel and parliamentary clerks, and regulated businesses and public bodies that rely on SIs for rights and duties.
Why It Matters
The bill formalises a short inter‑House escalation route and a narrow executive power to fix drafting slips. That reduces the risk that trivial drafting defects will render instruments misleading, while giving the Lords a procedural lever to bring Commons scrutiny to bear—altering the practical balance of oversight over secondary legislation.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill does two things that change how Parliament and ministers handle secondary legislation. First, it creates a mechanism by which the House of Lords can pause approval of a draft statutory instrument and communicate its concerns to the House of Commons.
The Commons then votes: either it rejects the Lords’ concerns, allowing the Lords to proceed to approve or disapprove the instrument, or it asks the minister to make amendments. If the Commons asks for amendments, the minister has 40 days to either withdraw the instrument or withdraw it and re‑lay a replacement (which may be amended).
Notably, once an instrument is re‑laid under that process the loop in sections 1–4 of the new insertion does not apply to the re‑laid version, so the Lords cannot use the same conditional route repeatedly against the same instrument.
Second, the bill grants a limited correction power to a Minister of the Crown or any person who has the statutory authority to make, confirm or approve an SI. That person can correct errors within forty days of final approval where the change would not alter the legal meaning and would prevent the instrument from being misleading.
The bill explicitly bars using this power to fix substantive policy mistakes or to remedy a failure to achieve an intended effect because circumstances have changed. Where a correction is made, the corrected instrument must be printed and published in the same way as other SIs under section 2.There are also two small textual changes to section 7 of the 1946 Act—substituting “three” for “two” in subsection (1), and “four” for “three” in subsection (2)—and an implementation clause that brings the Act into force six months after Royal Assent and gives any amendment the same territorial extent as the provision amended.
Those arithmetic substitutions are brief but will alter whatever numerical thresholds or cross‑references are in the existing section 7 framework.Taken together the measures create a short, formal path for Lords concerns to prompt Commons action, limit repeat blocking of the same instrument, and give the executive a narrow, time‑limited way to tidy drafting errors after final approval. That reconfigures small but practical parts of the delegated‑legislation ecosystem: timing, publication, and which chamber can escalate an issue.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill inserts a new section 6A allowing the House of Lords to withhold approval of a draft SI while formally communicating its concerns to the House of Commons.
After such a communication the Commons must vote either to reject the concerns or to request that the minister amend the draft instrument.
If the Commons requests amendments, the minister must, within 40 days, either withdraw the draft instrument or withdraw it and lay a further copy (amended or not) before both Houses; a relaid instrument is not subject to the same conditional process.
Section 7A gives a Minister of the Crown or other maker a 40‑day window after final approval to correct errors that do not change the instrument’s meaning; corrections cannot be used to fix substantive policy failures or changes in circumstance, and corrected SIs must be printed and published under section 2.
The Act increases the numeric references in section 7(1) and 7(2) (substituting “three” for “two” and “four” for “three”) and will come into force six months after Royal Assent, with the same extent as amended provisions.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Conditional withholding of approval and Commons referral
This provision sits alongside the existing section 6 procedures and gives the Lords a formal power to withhold approval while it passes specific concerns to the Commons. Practically, it creates a two‑stage inter‑House interaction: the Lords flags issues and the Commons decides whether those issues warrant amendment. The 40‑day re‑lay window and the rule excluding re‑application of the process to a relaid instrument limit how long an SI can be held in procedural limbo and prevent repeated re‑triggering by the Lords against the same text.
Limited correction power for makers of SIs
This section authorises makers to correct drafting errors within forty days after final approval, but only where the correction would not change the legal meaning and would reduce the risk of the instrument being misleading. The measure requires corrected copies to be printed and published under the usual section 2 rules. Practically, that empowers departments to fix typographical mistakes and other non‑substantive defects without going through the full re‑making process, but it stops short of allowing policy or effect changes via correction.
Numeric adjustments in existing section 7
Two short textual substitutions change the numbers in subsection 7(1) from “two” to “three” and in subsection 7(2) from “three” to “four.” Those edits are technical but will shift the numeric thresholds or cross‑references established by the existing subsection 7; departments and procedural teams should check downstream references and any dependent drafting or forms that assume the old numbers.
Commencement timing and territorial extent
The Act comes into force six months after Royal Assent and applies to the same territorial extent as the provisions it amends. This gives a clear implementation window for departments and for Parliament to update guidance and forms before the new powers and processes take effect.
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Explore Government in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Ministers and departmental lawyers — they gain a narrowly circumscribed power to correct drafting errors without re‑making instruments, reducing the administrative and legal frictions that arise from simple typographical or drafting slips.
- House of Lords members and scrutiny committees — they obtain a formal mechanism to escalate concerns to the Commons, increasing the practical weight of their objections to draft instruments.
- Regulated businesses and third parties — fewer misleading texts in the statute book reduces compliance uncertainty and the risk of unintended obligations arising from drafting mistakes.
- Parliamentary clerks and publishing services — the requirement to print corrected copies standardises publication practice and clarifies record‑keeping for corrected instruments.
Who Bears the Cost
- Departments and small arm’s‑length bodies — they must resource quicker turnarounds (40‑day windows) to withdraw and re‑lay instruments and to prepare corrected printed copies, which may strain small teams.
- House of Commons procedural teams — the Commons will be required to take formal decisions on Lords’ concerns, adding votes and possible debates to an already busy programme.
- Civil servants and parliamentary counsel — they carry the compliance and judgment burden of deciding whether an error “does not change the meaning,” a fact‑ and law‑intensive inquiry that can expose them to legal challenge.
- Legal practitioners and courts — the new correction power and the limits on its use could produce litigation over whether a correction was substantive, generating advisory and litigation costs.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between strengthening effective parliamentary scrutiny (letting the Lords trigger Commons consideration of concerns) and preserving the ability of government to implement secondary legislation efficiently (by limiting delay and allowing ministers to fix drafting slips quickly). Each side solves a real problem—greater oversight versus operational certainty—but the mechanisms that solve one problem (a formal Lords-to‑Commons route) risk undermining the other (speed and clarity in the statute book), and the bill leaves several practical line‑drawing questions to be resolved in practice or by the courts.
The bill resolves one recurring problem—how to deal with minor drafting defects—by giving the executive a time‑limited correction power, but it does so with wording that will invite interpretation disputes. The statutory standard used (“do not change the meaning of the legislation”) seems clear at first blush, but applying that test to edge cases (cross‑references, defined terms, punctuation in complex schedules) will be fact‑sensitive and may produce litigation.
There is no explicit appeal or review route set out in the bill for disputes about whether a correction was lawful, so courts will likely be the arbiter when disagreements arise.
On the parliamentary side, the conditional amendment mechanism increases the Lords’ leverage by forcing Commons engagement, but the bill inserts procedural limits—chiefly the 40‑day ministerial window and the exclusion of the relaid instrument from repeat application. Those limits balance prompt government action against prolonged obstruction, but they also create incentives for tactical behaviour.
For example, a Commons majority could routinely reject Lords’ concerns even when issues are substantive; conversely, a minister under pressure may re‑lay an instrument unamended to meet the deadline, shifting the burden back to affected parties to litigate. The small numeric substitutions to section 7 are technical but require close cross‑checking to avoid unexpected procedural anomalies where other acts or guidance reference the old figures.
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