ontologies

Statutory Instruments subject to procedure

The following queries will show all Statutory Instruments available in the Statutory Instrument Service. This data goes back to the beginning of the 2017-19 session. The available SIs query will return all work packages with a ‘Laid before the House of Commons’ step. The other queries are broken down by procedure, session or by year (given that Statutory Instruments are numbered by calendar year rather than sessional).

Note that the Statutory Instrument Service omits Statutory Instruments:

For a more complete set of Statutory Instruments please go to legislation.gov.uk.

All available Statutory Instruments

This query will show you all instruments laid before Parliament since the Statutory Instrument Service began.

Statutory Instruments currently before Parliament

This query shows all instruments currently before Parliament:

The Non-contentious Probate (Fees) Order 2018, that was laid under the draft affirmative procedure in November 2018, shows in the list despite its age. This instrument was approved in the Lords in December 2018. It was considered in a Commons Delegated Legislation Committee in February 2019 but it has yet to receive a vote. It will remain ‘current’ until either the Commons approve the instrument or the Government withdraws it.

Statutory instruments by session

Statutory instruments by calendar year

Filtering by time period

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 to row 21d in the Sparql query:

FILTER ( str(?itemDate) > '2017-06-01' && str(?itemDate) < '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')

Statutory Instruments by laying department

Statutory instrument by laying department

Note that any query can be amended to include laying body filter. To do this add the following strings in your query (if laying hasn’t already been queried):

?SI :laidThingHasLaying ?laying.

?laying :businessItemHasProcedureStep id:cspzmb6w .

?laying :date ?laidDate.

?laying :layingHasLayingBody ?layingBody.

?layingBody :name ?layingBodyName. 

FILTER (?layingBody IN (id:fpWTqVKh))

A list of laying bodies can be found here.

Statutory Instruments by procedure

Statutory instruments laid before House of Commons only

Some instruments, usually to do with financial or tax matters, are laid before the House of Commons only. This query narrows down the above queries to show these:

As of August 2020 there were no draft negative instruments laid before the House of Commons only.

Specific flavours of Statutory Instruments

Some Statutory Instruments, mostly those under the affirmative procedure, differ slightly from the main procedure. Differences are usually set out in the enabling legislation that the instrument is laid under. We’ve tried to distinguish these types of instruments where possible.

Specific flavours of Statutory Instruments

Communication declaring that the instrument came into force before being laid

When an instrument has been brought into operation before it has been laid before Parliament the Government must communicate this to the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Speaker explaining why the instrument was not laid before Parliament first. The communication shall be laid upon the Table of the House. This is laid out in both Houses standing orders (House of Commons 160, House of Lords 71).

Made Statutory Instruments bringing in local coronavirus restrictions in England

Jeni has created a spreadsheet of areas in England in which local coronavirus lockdowns have been declared. The spreadsheet provides a breakdown of affected areas, which statutory instruments apply, how long the restrictions are in place and further government guidance. Following Jeni’s tweet about the work, Michael suggested that the spreadsheet could include links to the instruments on Parliament’s Statutory Instrument Service so users can see the instruments progress through Parliament.

The following query provides the instruments from Jeni’s spreadsheet alongside their Parliament IDs, procedure, laid date and approval periods:

To find the instruments on the Statutory Instrument Service take the ID from the end of the url in the first column, SI:

https://id.parliament.uk/vFYzfuo7

And add it to the url like so:

https://statutoryinstruments.parliament.uk/timeline/vFYzfuo7/SI

Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s scrutiny of coronavirus legislation

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee is considering statutory instruments (subject to parliamentary procedure) that are being laid to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. A dedicated webpage has been set up to provide a running list of the instruments that have been laid. Once they have been considered by the Committee, a link to the relevant report will be added. Note that this page is usually only updated during sitting times.

Committee consideration

Committee consideration of Statutory Instruments

Motions tabled on Statutory Instruments

Motions tabled on Statutory Instruments

Debates on Statutory Instruments

Debates on statutory instruments

English Votes for English Laws consideration

Between 2015 and 2020 all affirmative instruments should have been considered for EVEL under Standing Order 83P. Made negatives that had a prayer tabled against them and that were scheduled for debate will also have been considered for EVEL. In 2021 the House of Commons agreed to rescind Standing Orders 83J to 83X.

Draft instruments signed into law

Once draft instruments reach the end of parliamentary procedure there is the potential for them to be made (signed into law). For the draft affirmative procedure and the draft affirmative remedial order procedure this can happen at any stage after the final House has approved the instrument. For draft negatives this can happen at any stage after the prayer period has ended (as long as the House has not rejected the instrument).

Statutory Instruments and their preceding papers

Statutory instruments can be preceded by a number of different paper types (as detailed below). This query looks for all statutory instruments that were preceded in Parliament by another paper.

Statutory Instruments and their preceding proposed negative instruments

Once a proposed negative instrument has been considered by the European Statutory Instruments Committee and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee the Government can then lay a following Statutory Instrument. The following query shows all instruments that were preceded by a proposed negative statutory instrument:

Statutory Instruments and their preceding published drafts

Once a published draft under Paragraph 14 of Schedule 8 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018) has completed its 28 day scrutiny period the Government can then lay a following Statutory Instrument under one of the affirmative procedures. The following query shows all instruments that were preceded by a published draft:

Remedial Orders and their preceding proposed draft remedial orders

Once a proposed draft remedial order has been before Parliament for 60 days then Government can then lay a following Statutory Instrument. The following query shows all instruments that were preceded by a proposed draft remedial order. Generally it will most likely be a draft affirmative remedial order that will have such a relationship but occasionally the Government may lay a made affirmative remedial order if the Joint Committee on Human Rights has recommended such action when considering the proposed draft remedial order.

Withdrawn, lapsed and revoked Statutory instruments

This section focuses on statutory instruments whose parliamentary procedure ended due to an action or inaction by the government:

Revoked Statutory Instruments

The following query looks for all made instruments that were revoked while they were still before Parliament. We do not actualise revoking steps for instruments that are revoked once their parliamentary procedure has concluded.

Made affirmative Statutory Instruments lapsed

The following query looks at made affirmative instruments (including remedial orders) that were not approved by both Houses by the time the approval period ended. If this happens the instrument lapses and cannot remain law.

Void Statutory Instruments

The following query looks for all made affirmative and made negative instruments that were made void by Government after being signed into law. An instrument can be made void when it has been made/published by mistake. This is an extremely rare occurence, the normal procedure for such instances would be for the instrument to be revoked. When an instrument is void the procedure concludes and the instrument is removed from legislation.gov.uk as if it was never signed into law.

Withdrawn Statutory Instruments

The following query looks for all draft instruments withdrawn from the House of Commons and House of Lords.