The Different Types of Delegated Legislation

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The Different Types of Delegated Legislation

a). Describe the different types of delegated legislation, explaining

how the power to make them is delegated (15 marks)

Delegated legislation is made up of laws that are created under the

authority of Parliament, but not by Parliament itself. The Enabling

or Parent Act is what is used to specify the person or group with the

power to make more specific laws and the extent of their power. There

are three types of delegated legislation which are statutory

instruments, orders in council and bylaws.

Statutory instruments are made by Government ministers after

Parliament gives them the power to create them to use in assisting

government departments, for example, where time limits or fees are

set. This is shown in R v Secretary of State for the Home Department,

ex parte Simms (1999) where the Home Secretary made regulations to

control prisoners’ visits.

Orders in council are created by the Queen and the Privy Council,

which advises the Queen and the power to do so comes from an Enabling

Act from Parliament. Orders in council are used to transfer power to

other government ministers to those in Northern Ireland assemblies.

They are also used when Parliament is not sitting, as it is a lot

easier to organise a meeting with the Privy Council than it is to call

the whole of Parliament. Orders in Council are also used to enforce

Acts of Parliament.

Bylaws are created by public corporations and local authorities, like

County Councils and deal with matters involving their area and apply

only to that area. County Councils may create a bylaw to help improve

the appearance of their area...

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supervision from Parliament, for example, the Sierra Leone Order 1997,

which banned the selling of arms in Sierra Leone. It is argued that

these sorts of regulations are created with little public knowledge

and don’t receive a lot of criticism in the media or scrutiny by

Parliament. This has also been acknowledged in a report made by the

Commons Select Committee on Procedure in 2000. Legislation involving

affirmative procedure is subject to more debate than those involving

negative procedure, even if the negative procedure involves

controversial matters. It is also stated that time and expertise is

often wasted where more controversial issues are dealt with in a

matter of minutes, whereas major changes in the law can pass through

Parliament undebated, simply because they are in negative statutory

instruments.

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