Delegated legislation is the way we make the vast majority of our laws in the UK. While only a handful of Acts of Parliament are passed each year, the number of individual pieces of delegated legislation, a form of legislation which is made by ministers under powers from Acts of Parliament, is in the thousands. This has been the case for many decades now.
Given this reality, our system for making and scrutinising delegated legislation is a critical part of our constitutional arrangements, including for safeguarding the rule of law. Unfortunately, that system is demonstrably not fit for purpose: while the executive branch accumulates more and more sweeping powers to legislate, parliament’s processes remain too weak to provide meaningful scrutiny. The system itself, in its current unsatisfactory state, often does more to undermine the rule of law than promote it. Examples are numerous, so we will focus on some of the experiences with the over 700 regulations passed so far to facilitate Brexit.