The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (formerly the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee) is a select committee of the House of Lords that refers secondary legislation, such as statutory instruments, to the House that it considers interesting or important. This is unlike the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and Commons Select Committee on Statutory Instruments, which only scrutinise instruments for legal and drafting defects. The specific criteria used by the committee are whether the legislation—
The committee adopted its current name on 15 May 2012 principally because of the addition of Public Bodies Orders under the Public Bodies Act 2011.[1]
Due to the number of additional instruments specifically related to Brexit, the committee expanded into two sub-committees from October 2018 until April 2019.[2]
As of January 2024, the membership of the committee is:[3]
| Member | Party | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Lord Hunt of Wirral | Conservative | ||
| Lord De Mauley | Conservative | ||
| Baroness Harris of Richmond | Liberal Democrat | ||
| Baroness Lea of Lymm | Conservative | ||
| Lord Powell of Bayswater | Crossbench | ||
| Baroness Randerson | Liberal Democrat | ||
| Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick | Labour | ||
| Lord Rowlands | Labour | ||
| Lord Russell of Liverpool | Crossbench | ||
| Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd | Crossbench | ||
| Lord Watson of Wyre Forest | Labour | ||