Healthy Start Scheme and Welfare Food (Amendment) Regulations 2008 (S.I. 2008/408)

3.1 The Committee draws the special attention of both Houses to these Regulations on the ground that they are defectively drafted in one respect.

3.2 Regulation 2(5) inserts a new regulation 3(7) in the Healthy Start Scheme and Welfare Food (Amendment) Regulations 2005 which states that, for the purposes of certain specified provisions, a person shall be treated as not entitled to working tax credit where regulation 7D of the Working Tax Credit (Entitlement and Maximum Rate) Regulations 2002 applies. Each of those specified provisions is amended so that, instead of saying that benefit is payable if certain conditions are satisfied and the relevant person is not entitled to working tax credit, they now state that benefit is payable if those conditions are satisfied and, except as provided for under regulation 3(7), the person is not entitled to working tax credit.

3.3 In a memorandum printed at Appendix 3, the Department for Health confirms that the intended effect is that benefit is payable if the person either is not entitled to working tax credit or is treated as not being so entitled by virtue of regulation 3(7), and that it would have been better and clearer if some such wording had been used. It undertakes to improve the drafting when the Regulations are next amended. It also, however, states that it is content that the current text has the same effect.

3.4 The Committee is not convinced that that is the case. The addition of the words "except as provided for under [regulation 3(7)]" can only literally have the effect that regulation 3(7) must be ignored when considering whether or not a person is entitled to working tax credit, thus nullifying the intended effect of that regulation. The Committee accordingly reports these regulations for defective drafting.