Parliamentary scrutiny of delegated powers clauses: Plus ça change?
Location:
Teaching Room 04
Date/time
Fri 21 March 2025
14:00 - 16:00
Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law Seminar
Pablo Grez Hidalgo, Lecturer in Public Law, University of Strathclyde
About this event
This paper looks at the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s role in keeping delegated powers within appropriate constitutional boundaries. Examining the committee’s approach to legislative scrutiny reveals that since late 2021 the committee has shifted from its traditionally flexible, pragmatic perspective towards a new assertiveness. Moving from a previous reluctance to impose red lines, the new assertiveness is marked by a more constitutionalist perspective, big picture analysis and prescriptive language, and reference to institutional memory and precedent. Referring to the wider institutional landscape in which the committee operates, the paper posits that the committee’s new stance risks its political and institutional capital, with no guarantee of reversing existing trends on delegated legislation. The resulting tension in the relationship between committee and government exposes the frailties of the committee as an institutional mechanism.