07 June 2007
The Legal Services Bill has been selected as the pilot bill to examine how explanatory statements for amendments to bills will work in practice. The first explanatory statements were made today, 7 June.
This follows a recommendation by the modernisation committee in its first report of session 2005-06, 'The Legislative Process'. In their report, the committee concluded that members of parliament preparing for debates in public bill committees would be assisted if they were allowed to table a brief explanatory statement with each amendment or set of amendments.
Full details of the new scheme and guidelines are provided on parliament's website.
The first explanatory statements will be available on parliament's website.