Whilst trawling the masses of Bills, Instruments, and Statutory Instruments that course through our Parliamentary system, whilst reading the Hansard texts of proceedings I did notice that on 23^rd Nov 06 the Lords did move the setting up of 2 committee’s. 

Whilst it is not unusual for committee’s to be set up, the 2 committee’s in question will be looking specifically at the way in which Ministers are using delegated powers and their use of Statutory Instruments to slip changes to legislation through the house with the minimum of resistance, thereby being able to apply most of the draconian orders to Acts resulting in the mammoth losses to our rights that we have seen.

The first committee Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee will look at, with a view to determining whether or not the special attention of the House should be drawn to it; 

Every instrument, and every proposal which is in the form of a draft of such an instrument and is laid before each House.

To see whether it is politically or legally important or gives rise to issues of public policy, it may be inappropriate or it may inappropriately implement European Union legislation.

The second committee Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee is even more important as it is to report whether the provisions of any bill inappropriately delegate legislative power, or whether they subject the exercise of legislative power to an inappropriate degree of parliamentary scrutiny.

Both of these committee’s are crucial in highlighting the use by Ministers of their delegated powers and the use of Statutory Instruments in changing legislation and takings us further down the road to authoritarianism. 

Both committee’s have been instructed that the reports of the Select Committee’s shall be printed, regardless of any adjournment of the House

When the committee’s report, we hope that their findings will be favourable and acted upon, although this is yet to be seen, but for the time being, we believe that this is a step in the right direction in reversing the misuse of our parliamentary system.