The Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC) produces opinions of impact assessments (IAs) to help departments ensure that the evidence and analysis in them is sufficiently robust. We provide an independent opinion 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 expected to submit IAs to the RPC in time for the RPC to issue an opinion before the relevant legislation is laid before Parliament.
The Statutory Instrument (SI), the Official Controls (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2024 has been laid before Parliament today, 22nd April, and comes into force on 30 April.
The IA for the SI was first submitted to the RPC for scrutiny on 3 March. The RPC's initial review of the IA, sent to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on 3 April, found that it was not sufficiently robust, and identified areas where improvements should be made. We considered that the points raised would have generated a red-rated opinion, if not addressed adequately. A revised IA was received from Defra on 19 April. The RPC is currently reviewing this and will produce an opinion as soon as possible. Our opinion will be made available to the Government and Parliament and published on our website as soon as it is complete. The revised IA Assessment has been published by the department alongside the SI.
