Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many statutory instruments from the Department for Transport 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what percentage corrected errors in a previous instrument (including drafts of affirmative instruments that had to be superseded by correcting drafts); and what steps that Department is taking to reduce the need for correcting instruments.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 Department for Transport has laid 58 statutory instruments before Parliament this calendar year. Of these four, or about 6.9%, corrected errors in a previous instrument (including one that supersedes an instrument laid in draft).

In addition one instrument was laid that replaced an instrument that had been previously laid but which did not correspond precisely with the instrument as made.

Correcting instruments are something that all legal teams try to avoid. The Department for Transport devotes significant resources to checking draft statutory instruments and to the continuing education of drafters, both informally, for example by using more experienced drafters to mentor less experienced drafters, and through more formal training at departmental level and under the aegis of the Government Legal Service. The Department is also represented on a cross-Whitehall group of drafting specialists which exists to act as a point of contact and facilitate the sharing of best practice and it is participating in a review of statutory instrument drafting arrangements in an enlarged shared legal service led by the Treasury Solicitor’s Department.