Instruments can be laid under an enhanced affirmative procedure under section 268 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. While the instrument is laid as a draft instrument, it is a slightly different procedure to a normal draft affirmative. The instrument is subject to a 40-day pre-approval period meaning that the instrument must sit before Parliament for 40 days before the Houses can approve. In the first 30 days of the period, either House of Parliament can resolve or a committee of either House can recommend that subsections 6-9 of 268 should apply. Subsections 6-9 extends the 40-day clock period to a 60-day period.
There have been two instruments laid under the procedure since 2016.
If you have a specified time period you’re interested in then you can amend the query above by adding either of the following strings in the Sparql query:
FILTER ( str(?LaidDate) > ‘2017-06-01’ && str(?LaidDate) < ‘2019-10-09’)
Or if you want to only see proposed negative statutory instruments before/after a certain point use the following (just remember to change the less-than/greater-than sign depending on your need for before/after):
FILTER ( str(?itemDate) > ‘2019-12-13’)
Section 268 of the 2016 Act provides for an “enhanced affirmative procedure” whereby an instrument laid under the Act must be laid before Parliament in draft, along with an explanatory document, for 40 days2 before it can be approved by resolution of each House. Within 30 days of laying, either House may pass a resolution in respect of the instrument or a committee charged with reporting on the regulations may make a recommendation about the instrument, in which case an enhanced procedure under section 268(6) to (9) of the 2016 Act applies. The enhanced procedure requires the Secretary of State to have regard to any representations, any resolution of either House and any recommendations of a relevant committee made within a 60–day period after laying. If, at the end of that period, the regulations are approved by each House, the Secretary of State may make them
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (SLSC) is responsible for considering enhanced affirmatives under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. There is no allocated committee in the House of Commons, in theory any committee may decide to pick up the instrument for consideration but this has not occurred to any instrument that’s been laid under the procedure, as of June 2024.
The Government must table a motion to approve an affirmative instrument if the instrument is to be debated. An instrument cannot be debated without this motion being tabled.
Many of the motions above will be debated and a question asked at the end of debate on whether the motion should be approved. We are unable to provide a query that shows specific motions and their outcomes, this is because a workpackage might have multiple motions tabled against it but only one motion might get debated and a question asked. At the moment we’re unable to show which motion the question applies to so the sparql query cannot provide a true picture. For that reason the following queries show questions asked and their outcomes.
Questions on motion to approve the instrument (House of Commons)
Questions on motion to approve the instrument (House of Lords)
Any motions that have yet to have an outcome (agreed, disagreed or withdrawn) at the end of session will lapse. At the beginning of the new session the Government or Members can table motion again.
All enhanced affirmatives under IPA16, unless withdrawn, will be debated in the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
The following queries break the above queries down further into type of debate so whether they took place in the chamber or in committee.