Home Office Delays Crime Bill Impact Assessments
RPC statement about the late publication of Home Office impact assessments relating to the Crime and Policing Bill
The Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC) produces opinions on the quality of impact assessments (IAs) to assist ministerial decision making and parliamentary scrutiny of regulatory proposals. We publish these to assist parliamentarians and to ensure that they are available to external stakeholders. Government departments are, therefore, expected to submit assessments to the RPC, and publish them, in time for our opinions to be published before the relevant legislation is laid before Parliament.
The Crime and Policing Bill was introduced to Parliament on 25 February. Rather than submitting to the RPC a single IA covering the whole Bill, the Home Office submitted separate IAs relating to individual parts of the Bill that have an impact on business. We have issued an opinion on an IA for one such measure and are currently considering another, however the IAs have not yet been published by the department even though the Bill is in Parliament. When they are published and when RPC scrutiny of them has been completed, we will make our opinions available to Parliament and publish them on our website. We will update this statement at that point.
Separately, two Ministry of Justice IAs have been published alongside the bill. RPC scrutiny of these is not required as the relevant proposals do not regulate business activity and are, therefore, not in scope of the Better Regulation Framework.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/crime-and-policing-bill-late-publication-of-home-office-impact-assessments