Mental Health Bill: statement on lateness of IA submission
RPC statement about the late submission of the Mental Health Bill impact assessment
The RPC produces opinions on options assessments (OAs) and impact assessments (IAs) to help departments ensure that the evidence and analysis in them is sufficiently robust. Our independent opinions assist ministerial decision-making and parliamentary scrutiny of regulatory proposals that are in the scope of the Better Regulation Framework. Government departments are required to submit IAs of their regulatory proposals to the RPC in sufficient time for us to issue an opinion before the legislation is presented to Parliament. The IA and the RPC’s opinion should then be published alongside the legislation.
Since the Mental Health Bill is in the Government’s legislative programme for 2024/25, the Better Regulation Framework urgent measures procedure allows the Department (the Department of Health and Social Care) to submit an IA for the proposals, rather than an OA as normally required.
The Bill was introduced to Parliament on 6 November 2024. An IA has been published alongside the Bill, having been submitted for RPC scrutiny on 31 October.
The RPC is currently reviewing the IA and will produce an opinion when its scrutiny has been completed. This will be made available to the Government and published on the RPC’s website.