Election 2017: What has happened to major bills and policies

Major bills

• Three bills have ‘fallen.’ The flagship Prisons and Courts Bill, the Local Government Finance Bill and the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill did not make it through before dissolution. They now disappear and must start afresh in the next Parliament, if government decides it wants to begin them again at all.
• Eight other significant bills made it through – but often with significant compromises. For instance, the Higher Education and Research Bill passed with amendments, including delaying measures that would link the new teaching excellence framework to differentiated tuition fees.
• The Finance Bill also made it through – but as we previously argued – much of the most controversial material was dropped (in fact, 600 of the 700 pages of the original Finance Bill were scrapped). Instead, it is likely that most of the clauses that have been dropped will be introduced in a new Parliament, where they can hopefully receive the scrutiny they deserve (although Brexit will put a lot of pressure on the system).

It is worth noting the sheer scale of legislation that was passed during the wash-up period. Over 50% of successful government bills from the entire parliamentary session were passed on the last sitting day of Parliament. We have argued that this raises serious questions about whether they received sufficient scrutiny.

And as we have argued, the same is true of select committee reports. In the rush to get the results of parliamentary inquiries published before dissolution, findings from as many as 30 inquiries were published in the last few days of Parliament, with many being published months ahead of schedule. Again, this flood of activity means inquiry findings are unlikely to receive the attention they deserve.

Major policies

On top of legislation, there are also rafts of policy priorities that are currently being developed and implemented. Some of these are likely to carry on without too much disruption: the implementation of Universal Credit, for instance, will probably continue on its existing timetable with final rollout in autumn 2018, unless party manifestos say otherwise.

But for others, the election has created disruption and delay:

• The Boundary Review changes will now be delayed until 2022 at the earliest.
• The National Funding Formula reforms will also likely be delayed again, having already been pushed back a year.
• Mayoral elections continue today but it is unclear if there will be more devolution deals after that.
• A white paper on grammar schools was expected in June but will be delayed.
• The consultation on the initial industrial strategy documents ended on 17 April but further work will have to wait on the results of the election.

This is an update to our previous policy and legislation tracker post.