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On 30th January 2008 the Home Secretary laid before both Houses of Parliament a draft Order to renew the control order legislation, the third annual extension of the control order regime. The Government takes the view that no amendments to the legal framework are necessary. The Committee disagrees and considers it imperative for the Government to amend counter-terrorism laws where experience has shown them to lead to breaches of human rights. Amongst their recommendations are: ensurance of timely availability of Lord Carlile's annual report on the control orders; the need to strengthen the intrusive powers contained in the control orders; modification of the Prevention of Terrorism Act to impose a maximum daily limit 12 hours on the curfew which can be imposed; review of the fairness of the special advocate procedure and a need to take into account the Committee's own earlier recommendations concerning this; maintaining the preferred policy of priority of prosecution; and greater transparency of decisions that prosecution is not possible.

This report reviews progress since 2009 on the recommendations of the Select Committee on Reform of the House of Commons - known as the Wright Committee after its Chair, Dr Tony Wright - and looks forward. It concludes that: Commons select committees are more effective, and election of select committee chairs and members by MPs in a secret ballot, instead of being appointed by the whips, as recommended by Wright, have brought greater transparency and democracy; the Backbench Business Committee, another suggestion of Wright, has been a success, giving backbenchers the chance to decide the subjects of debates covering about a quarter of the House's time; another key Wright recommendation - a House Business Committee which would give backbenchers an influence on the rest of the House's agenda - can be and should be introduced without delay. The Coalition Agreement said in 2010 that the Committee would be established by the third year of this Parliament; the House's petitions procedure is failing to meet public expectations. There is too much confusion between the roles of Government and Parliament. The Committee argues that there is still a case for the establishment of a petitions committee and recommends that officials work up a detailed and costed proposition which could then be put to the House for its endorsement

The House should be given the opportunity to restate its acceptance of the principle behind the proposal that lay members be added to the Committee on Standards and Privileges, the Procedure Committee concludes in a report published today. The committee's report responds to the resolution of the House of 2 December last year that lay members should sit on the Committee on Standards and Privileges. If that principle is restated, the House should study with care the arguments made for the inclusion of lay members with or without voting rights, and decide whether lay members should be appointed to the committee with full voting rights or whether they should be appointed with more limited rights protected by rules on quorum and publication of their opinion or advice. A decision in favour of membership with full voting rights would require legislation to be brought forward to put beyond reasonable doubt any question of whether parliamentary privilege applies to the Committee on Standards where it has an element of lay membership. The Procedure Committee recommends that the Committee on Standards and Privileges should be split in two, and that lay members should be included only on the committee relating to standards. The committee also makes a number of practical recommendations about the number, appointment and term of office of lay members.

This Command Paper from the Office of the Leader of the House of Commons sets out a process for post-legislative scrutiny by the Government. The main proposal is that after 3 years any law that has been passed will undergo a review by the relevant Government Department and then Parliament to see how effective the law has been. The publication also includes an appendix with a detailed response to the Law Commission's report on Post-legislative scrutiny (Cm. 6945, ISBN 9780101694520).