The House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee is probably not the best-known body in Parliament. But it is the one group of Parliamentarians collectively tackling some of the issues arising from the Government’s peremptory changes to the Consultation Code of Practice in 2012.

Just to refresh memories, the 2008 Code of Practice, widely regarded as a solid set of rules for Government consultations was, overnight, replaced by a woolly set of Principles including abandoning (at least in part) the long-established ’12-week’ recommended timescale. In response to criticism it set up a working committee and in October 2013, made some small improvements, but nothing of any significance. The Committee was not persuaded and said that “Even after revision, we felt that the principles showed too little progress towards an approach to consultation which effectively balanced the interests of the Government with those of stakeholders in civil society generally.”