Luxembourg Rail Protocol; and power to amend rail markets legislation: RPC Opinions (Green-rated)
Regulatory Policy Committee opinions on IAs for the Luxembourg Rail Protocol and power to amend rail markets legislation
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The Luxembourg Rail Protocol
The proposal is to provide a new power to allow future regulations, which will allow for the full implementation of the Luxembourg Rail Protocol.
The Department identified and assessed the scale of some impacts of the measure, but there was too much uncertainty over the impacts of the proposal to allow a meaningful or robust EANDCB at this stage. This is because the level of detail currently available on the expected content of secondary legislation is insufficient. The IA’s approach is consistent with RPC guidance on assessment of impacts at primary legislation stage. The RPC expects to assess any subsequent secondary legislation IAs.
Power to make or amend rail markets legislation in the Rail Reform Bill
The proposal is to include a power in the Bill, to enable the Government to make amendments to rail markets regulation through secondary legislation.
On first submission, the IA received an initial review notice. The IA did not meet the RPC’s requirements for the assessment of primary legislation proposals. The IA did usefully explain why policy decisions would not be known until secondary legislation is brought forward, and committed to providing IAs at that point. However, for a proposal with apparently wide-ranging scope and potential impacts, the assessment was too brief and descriptive. The RPC felt the IA needed to be more proportionate providing further discussion, with case study illustration, of the type and impact of secondary legislation that could be brought forward, drawing upon past measures. This was necessary to meet RPC guidance for assessment of proposals in primary legislation. In addition, the IA focussed on familiarisation and administrative costs and needed to provide a broader consideration of potential costs, such as potentially on business operating costs and revenue. The IA also needed to provide indicative estimates of familiarisation costs or explain why it would not be proportionate to do so.
The revised IA, satisfactorily addressed the RPC’s concerns on the assessment of the direct impacts on business, including specific considerations in respect of small and microbusinesses.
A draft Rail Reform Bill was published on 20 February 2024. The draft Bill will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny which, we understand, will be conducted by the Transport Select Committee.
An IA has been published alongside the draft Bill. It assesses, as well as the above two opined IAs on identified regulatory provisions, the impacts of five proposals in the draft Bill, which it states are not regulatory provisions1 . The IA for the draft Bill has now been submitted to the RPC for its scrutiny.