Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons Memoranda


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.


 
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