4 The European Scrutiny system
19. It seems to the Government that the European
Scrutiny Committee itself works effectively. Although it imposes
a heavy workload on Departments and there seems to be some duplication
with work required for the Lords EU Committee, the Government
believes that it does an admirable job in sifting the large number
of European documents which come before it, alerting the House,
and outside stakeholders, to those of significance. The Government
welcomes the Committee's commitment to improving the accessibility
of information about its work, and hopes that the House will consider
whether the resources to support this are adequate.
20. The problem lies with what comes next. There
seems to be general agreement that the European Standing Committees
have not worked out as it was hoped. It is hard to persuade Members
to serve on them. Few other Members think them worth attending.
Their proceedings have a ritualistic quality, and are largely
devoid of much political interest; yet they consume a lot of time
and effort. There is a very strong case for reform.
21. The European Scrutiny Committee has in the past
recommended that the number of European Standing Committees be
increased from three to five, in order to allow them to specialise
on a narrower field of policy. The suggestion is that this would
make the Committees more focussed and more appealing to Members.
The Government does not think this would be successful; if the
Committees have not worked, it does not seem to make sense to
make more of them.
22. A further suggestion which has been made is that
the problem lies with the Committees' powerlessness. At present,
if the Committee amends the motion before it, the Government is
not required to amend the motion which it puts before the House.
It has been suggested that the Government should be required to
table the motion as agreed by the Committee, and to move a further
amendment if it thought that necessary. Alternatively, if the
Government chose to table a motion in different terms, it should
be subject to a short debate on the Floor. The Government is not
persuaded that this would make much difference.
23. There are a number of other options for reform
which the Modernisation Committee might like to consider.
24. First, we could stick with roughly the present
system and try and make it work better. There could be stronger
linkage between the European Standing Committees and the European
Scrutiny Committee, perhaps with the Scrutiny Committee sending
a representative to the Standing Committee to explain why it thought
a debate was necessary. Members of the Standing Committee might
be provided with a briefing pack, including the Scrutiny Committee's
report. The core membership could be reduced, with perhaps some
membership overlap with the relevant Departmental Select Committees.
25. Secondly, we could change the nature of the Standing
Committees a little. We could do away with the core membership,
reverting to ad hoc membership for each meeting (as for Standing
Committees on Delegated Legislation). We could change the motion
before them to a simple take note-type motion ("That the
Committee has considered [the document]"), and we could perhaps
limit them to 1½ hours. We could even go further and encourage
the Whips on both sides to take the view that attendance was optional.
The Government would in effect be saying: "here is an opportunity
to debate the document; take it or leave it". The Government
would need to be able then to put a substantive motion to the
House, whether or not the Committee had reported. The House would
then have an opportunity to divide on, or amend, the motion, if
it wished, albeit without debate. The downside would be that Ministers
and Opposition Spokesmen would still feel that they needed to
attend; and stakeholders and the public might be less than impressed
by inquorate meetings.
26. Thirdly, and more radically, we could decide
that the Standing Committee format is not what we want. It might
be that the select committee format of evidence-taking would be
more appropriate, and would allow opportunity to engage the public,
and outside stakeholders, more effectively in the European scrutiny
process.
27. If so, the options would be either to retain
the European Standing Committees with a core membership and give
them the power to take evidence, and perhaps to travel (opening
the possibility of evidence taking in Brussels, for example);
or to abolish them and to refer the documents instead to a Select
Committee, in the expectation that it would take evidence from
the relevant Minister, and others as appropriate. This could be
done either by an existing departmental select committee or one
of a new set of subject sub-committees of the European Scrutiny
Committee. Of these two options, the Government's preference would
be for documents to be referred to the relevant departmental select
committees, though it recognises the danger of overloading them.
Creating sub-committees of the European Scrutiny Committee would
risk duplicating what exists already in the House of Lords, and
might well meet with the same lack of willing volunteers as for
the European Standing Committees. Referring these matters to the
Departmental Select Committees would be more consistent with the
philosophy of "mainstreaming" European matters.
28. The Departmental Select Committees are already
charged by the Liaison Committee with examining policy proposals
from the European Commission. Some of them have done valuable
work in this field. Scrutinising EU documents to the timetable
required would impose a considerable workload on some Committees,
and require a different way of working from Committees' traditional
mode of inquiry. Those Committees with a heavy European workload
could be given the power to set up an additional Sub-Committee
for this purpose; and consideration could be given to increasing
the size of those Committees, allowing Members to specialise in
this work if they wished. The additional staff resources now being
given to Committees should increase their capacity and speed of
working.
29. Given that the timetable for negotiation of EU
proposals is not within the UK's control, it will be important
to ensure that any new system does not slow down the process of
scrutiny clearance. Delays would adversely affect the UK's position
in negotiations. It will also be important to ensure that scrutiny
arrangements do not impinge upon the ability of the UK and the
EU to take urgent operational decisions in response to emerging
crises.
30. If a decision were made to do away with the European
Standing Committees and to opt for referral to a select committee,
there would still be opportunity for occasional debates on European
documents of particular interest. On occasion, time on the Floor
might be required; but more regularly it might be possible to
provide time in Westminster Hall. The Modernisation Committee
might wish to consider this in the context of its review of sitting
hours.
|