Delegated Legislation

Delegated Legislation:

Delegated legislation is law made by bodies other than parliament. This is because Parliament is too busy to make every law. This means that other bodies have the authority of Parliament passed through an enabling act, which is an Act of Parliament given other authorities the permissiopn to make law.Parliament retains sovereignty however, because they have the legal power to withdraw this permission at any time.

The need for delegated legislation:

• Areas have specific needs that have to dealt with e.g. knife crime in London
• Parliament do not always sit
• Councils can make laws as it is specific to their area
• Parliament do not always have time - so Parliament do not get overwhelmed
• Different bodies have specialist knowledge
• The different home nations have different cultures

There are 4 ways in which Parliament grants permission to other authorities to make law. 

1. Statutory Instruments 

Statutory instruments are also known as regulations and are made by the government. The government has various departments, for example the secretary of state for transport, and they will be delegated the responsiblity to make statutory instruments on their area of expertise by specific acts of…