A lesson from the covid-19 pandemic is that Parliament should play a more active role in the creation, scrutiny and oversight of new criminal offences in response to emergencies. One of the primary functions of parliamentary scrutiny of legislation is to make the legislative process, and the law it creates, accessible and transparent. Parliament plays an important role in making sure that the law and any new criminal offences are so far as is possible intelligible, clear and predictable. It is not satisfactory in this context that Parliament was not always able to fulfil its function when Members were required to consider statutory instruments already repealed or already superseded. We recommend that the Government and the Procedure Committee of the House of Commons consider how future scrutiny of emergency regulations can be conducted in a timely fashion.