Pre-legislative scrutiny under the Conservative Governments of 2015-24

This research briefing provides a summary of the background to the development of pre-legislative scrutiny and an overview of the relevant parliamentary procedure in Section 1.

Sections 2-4 look at draft legislation announced or published in the 2015, 2017 and 2019 Parliaments and their subsequent scrutiny. Also included is draft legislation announced in the 2014-15 session which was subject to pre-legislative scrutiny in the subsequent 2015 Parliament.

Tax legislation is regularly published in draft for technical consultation and is not included here.

2015 Parliament

Seven proposals for draft legislation were announced during the 2015 Parliament and five were published: four draft bills and a set of draft clauses. These were scrutinised by the relevant departmental select committee and one (the Investigatory Powers Bill) was scrutinised by three committees.

The government published four reports in response to the select committees’ reports and subsequently introduced four bills: three in the House of Commons and one in the House of Lords. Two of these were introduced in the following 2017 Parliament.

2017 Parliament

Twelve proposals for draft legislation were announced during the 2017 Parliament, including one draft clause. Eleven of these draft bills were published of which seven were considered by the relevant departmental select committee and four allocated to an ad-hoc committee. The government published ten responses to the select committees’ reports and introduced nine bills, including two bills which had been published in draft in the 2015 Parliament.

2019 Parliament

Eleven proposals for draft legislation were announced during the 2019 Parliament and nine were published. Of these, six were scrutinised by the relevant departmental select committee and three allocated to an ad-hoc committee. One draft bill (the Rail Reform Bill) did not complete select committee scrutiny before the dissolution of Parliament in 2024. The government published seven responses to the select committees’ eight reports and introduced eleven bills, including four bills which had been published in draft in the 2017 Parliament.

Statistics and documentation on draft bills

Table 1 notes the number of draft bills published in each session since 1997-98, excluding draft Finance Bills. Draft clauses (and sets of draft clauses) are counted as draft bills. Details of the draft bills published in each session can be found in the appendix.

In total, in the Parliaments from 1997 to 2024, 135 pieces of draft legislation were published.

Draft bills and associated documents dating back to 2002-03 are available on the UK Parliament website.

The House of Commons Library research briefing Pre-legislative scrutiny provides an overview of the development of pre-legislative scrutiny and the draft bills published under the 1997-2010 Labour governments. The research briefing Pre-legislative scrutiny under the Coalition Government: 2010-2015 provides an overview of the draft bills published under the 2010-2015 Coalition government.