Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Stowell of Beeston on 29 July (HL1727), whether they plan to conduct an assessment of the number of bills in each of the three most recent parliamentary Sessions that affected England alone and had no implications for any of the other nations in the United Kingdom; and if not, why not.

The Government has not performed, and does not intend to perform, a retrospective assessment of bills introduced over the last Parliament because under the Government’s proposals on English Votes for English Laws, the application of the proposed new rules to future legislation will be a matter for the Speaker of the House of Commons. Decisions on certification will be a matter for Parliament and will apply to future legislation. Moreover, the Government's proposals would apply to England and England and Wales-only provisions within bills, as well as bills that are England-only in their entirety.