Statutory Instrument Practice A guide to help you prepare and publish Statutory Instruments and understand the Parliamentary procedures relating to them - 5th edition (November 2017) Statutory Instrument Practice Page i Statutory Instrument Practice is published by The National Archives © Crown copyright 2017 This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. Any enquiries regarding this publication should be sent to: [email protected]. Statutory Instrument Practice Page ii Preface This is the fifth edition of Statutory Instrument Practice (SIP) and replaces the edition published in November 2006. This edition has been prepared by the Legislation Services team at The National Archives. We will contact you regularly to make sure that this guide continues to meet your needs, and remains accurate. If you would like to suggest additional changes to us, please email them to the SI Registrar. Thank you to all of the contributors who helped us to update this edition. You can download SIP from: https://publishing.legislation.gov.uk/tools/uksi/si-drafting/si- practice. November 2017 Statutory Instrument Practice Page iii Contents PREFACE ............................................................................................................................. iii CONTENTS .......................................................................................................................... iv PART 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 1. ABOUT SIP AND STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS ............................................................. 1 1.1 How to use the Statutory Instrument Practice (SIP) Guide ....................................... 1 1.2 An overview of the Statutory Instrument (SI) process ............................................... 2 1.3 Some background to subordinate legislation .............................................................. 3 1.4 Types of Statutory Instrument........................................................................................ 7 1.5 Parliament and Statutory Instruments ........................................................................ 12 1.6 What is published and by what authority ................................................................... 14 1.7 Useful contacts ............................................................................................................... 16 PART 2: PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL AND SI CLASSES ............................................... 18 2. PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL AND PROCEDURES, AND SI CLASSES ...................... 18 2.1 What this part of the guide covers .............................................................................. 18 2.2 Affirmative procedure .................................................................................................... 18 2.3 Negative procedure ....................................................................................................... 21 2.4 Exceptional procedures ................................................................................................ 24 2.5 Other varieties of procedure ........................................................................................ 28 2.6 Other aspects of Parliamentary control ...................................................................... 29 2.7 Parliamentary Control for Orders in Council .............................................................. 30 2.8 Classes of SI .................................................................................................................. 31 2.9 Requirement for Explanatory Memoranda for SIs laid before Parliament ............ 33 2.10 Delivering Documents to Parliament .......................................................................... 35 2.11 The ‘21 day rule’ ............................................................................................................ 37 2.12 Compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights ............................. 38 2.13 Procedures for EU legislation ...................................................................................... 38 Statutory Instrument Practice Page iv 2.14 Procedures following the dissolution of Parliament .................................................. 38 2.15 Procedure for Statutory Instruments made under pre-1948 Acts .......................... 41 PART 3: REQUIRED CONTENT ........................................................................................ 45 3. REQUIRED CONTENT OF SIS AND ASSOCIATED DOCUMENTS .............................. 45 3.1 What this part of the guide covers .............................................................................. 45 3.2 Different Classes of SI and required content............................................................. 45 3.3 Local and General SIs .................................................................................................. 45 3.4 Illustrating different SI elements .................................................................................. 46 3.5 Headnotes ....................................................................................................................... 49 3.6 Banners ........................................................................................................................... 56 3.7 Numbers .......................................................................................................................... 58 3.8 Subject headings ........................................................................................................... 61 3.9 Titles of Statutory Instruments ..................................................................................... 64 3.10 Italic date information: made, laid and coming into force dates ............................. 68 3.11 Preamble and words of enactment ............................................................................. 73 3.12 Interpretation, citation and commencement provisions ........................................... 79 3.13 Extent and application provisions ................................................................................ 85 3.14 Revocations and amendments .................................................................................... 86 3.15 References to legislation and Command Papers ..................................................... 87 3.16 References to amended enactments in SIs .............................................................. 88 3.17 References to publications, documents, maps and plans ....................................... 88 3.18 References to EU instruments ..................................................................................... 90 3.19 Explanatory parentheses for references .................................................................... 91 3.20 Signatures (including multiple signatures and date of making) .............................. 91 3.21 Footnotes ........................................................................................................................ 93 3.22 Schedules and shoulder notes .................................................................................. 100 3.23 Explanatory Notes ....................................................................................................... 100 3.24 Notes as to earlier Commencement Orders/Regulations ...................................... 105 Statutory Instrument Practice Page v 3.25 SIs resulting from membership of the European Union ......................................... 106 PART 4: REGISTRATION, LAYING AND PUBLISHING ................................................... 109 4. VALIDATION, REGISTRATION, PUBLISHING ............................................................. 109 4.1 What this part of the guide covers ............................................................................ 109 4.2 Legislation.gov.uk Publishing .................................................................................... 110 4.3 Templates for SIs and associated documents ........................................................ 112 4.4 SI template and validation service ............................................................................ 115 4.5 Registration service ..................................................................................................... 118 4.6 Checks carried out at registration ............................................................................. 124 4.7 Correcting errors after submission through legislation.gov.uk Publishing .......... 126 4.8 Laying ............................................................................................................................ 130 4.9 Date of laying ............................................................................................................... 133 4.10 Laying and the printing programme .......................................................................... 135 4.11 Laying SIs and associated documents ..................................................................... 135 4.12 Publishing of SIs and Associated Documents ........................................................ 136 4.13 Withdrawing SIs ........................................................................................................... 137 4.14 Exemptions from the requirement to print ...............................................................