Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many statutory instruments from the Ministry of Justice have been laid this calendar year; of those, what percentage corrected errors in a previous instrument (including drafts of affirmative instruments that had to be superseded by correcting drafts); and what steps that Department is taking to reduce the need for correcting instruments.

The Ministry of Justice laid 80 statutory instruments between the start of the calendar year and 25 July 2014. The Ministry of Justice does not keep records of which statutory instruments corrected errors in previous instruments. However, it estimates that 3 instruments (less than 4% of the total) were expressed to be correcting errors made in, in consequence of a defect in, or in substitution of, a previous instrument and were as a result issued free of charge to known recipients of the original instrument.

The Ministry of Justice is strongly committed to improving the quality of statutory instrument drafting. In addition to providing training to relevant staff and adopting rigorous checking process (including a requirement that all instruments are subject to a second and third pair of eyes check by a lawyer who has not drafted the instrument), a new post of Statutory Instrument Co-ordinator has been established within the Legal Directorate to co-ordinate the sharing of best practice. The Ministry of Justice will also be participating in work being led by the Treasury Solicitor and First Parliamentary Counsel to enhance further the quality, consistency and effectiveness of statutory instruments across Government.