Examination of Witnesses (Questions 173-179)
8 SEPTEMBER 2004
HON MRS
GWYNETH DUNWOODY
MP AND RT
HON MICHAEL
JACK MP
Q173 Chairman: Thank you both very much
for coming and also for your very interesting written evidence
which we are grateful for. You will find that the style of this
Committee is perhaps a little more informal than you might approve
of, but it is up to you as to how you respond and the terminology
you use. What I would be grateful for—perhaps beginning
with you, Gwyneth, if you do not mind—is if you could summarise
what you really see as the purpose of your committees in European
scrutiny and the overall strengths and weaknesses from a select
committee point of view and what could help you to do the job
better.
Mrs Dunwoody: I think it is important
to realise that the institutions in the European set-up are, of
course, completely differently organised from our own. I was four
and a half years in European institutions and I learned very quickly
that negotiation will go on very specifically at the Council of
Ministers but also much more effectively at Coreper which is the
one where the representatives of the various civil servants meet.
All that preliminary work is very often done only within the very
broad lines of policy. Therefore ministers who arrive will very
frequently be presented with agendas at the last minute which
they have not had proper time to study and even more frequently
they will be required to take decisions and negotiate on a fairly
broad front without having the time to go back and negotiate,
for example, with a select committee. When you put that into context
and you look at the way that this House organises its work, you
then begin to realise there are a number of difficulties. We,
as a select committee—as I hope I have made clear to you—do
look very closely at European subjects. Indeed, because so much
of it impinges on what we do, we frequently pick up instances
which do not appear to have been looked at in very much detail
anywhere else. We have just finished an examination of European
aviation negotiations which mean that for the first time commercial
negotiations of our aviation interests will be left to a European
institution which certainly does not appear to be adequately staffed—but
that is a matter for them—and will be negotiating on completely
different terms than any that have been used before in this country
when it was negotiating bilateral agreements. If you had two nations
who negotiate an aviation treaty which is in their own commercial,
political and economic interests, it is very different from an
institution which is supposed to be negotiating an aviation commercial
agreement which is in the interests of 25 nations. When we looked
very closely at what the European institutions were doing we soon
came up with a number of very important and difficult questions.
What we do in the select committee is, in a sense, a thematic
approach. We decide where the subjects that we have decided to
look at are being affected by European institutions; we will look
at the impact of the European legislation and the European institutions.
I was interested to see that you suggested that the commissioners
should appear before the select committees. That would be nice
if one could arrange it. We have been trying for some very considerable
time to get a commissioner for transport to appear. When the lady
in question seemed to be rather occupied with politics elsewhere
in Europe—as is natural for politicians, I make no criticism—we
then said that we would be quite happy to have the senior civil
servants of her transport cabinet and even with the very considerable
muscle of the UK Representative we were unable to obtain that.
Q174 Sir Nicholas Winterton: Why?
Mrs Dunwoody: We were not given
a reason; we were just not given dates. As you can imagine, Sir
Nicholas, I am not in the habit of being refused by gentlemen
for any length of time.
Q175 Mr McLoughlin: You said it was a
lady.
Mrs Dunwoody: The gentlemen were
the civil servants. Like all ladies she frequently surrounded
herself by gentlemen. In this particular instance we have been
trying for well over eight months, perhaps nine, to get anyone
to come and talk to us who was senior enough to give us evidence.
That does rather indicate to me that what we might get if we were
to suggest that European commissioners came to give evidence would
be a series of rather elaborate and staged appearances by commissioners
who, after all, do not regard themselves as answerable to national
governments; there is no reason why they should. They are not
answerable to national governments nor is the Commission. Therefore
I am not at all sure what the function of these sessions would
be. Are we to take it that if they were given instructions by
a select committee they would then take a different attitude?
I think that is interesting and it can really only wait to be
seen, but it seems extraordinarily unlikely. I also have real
reservations about unloading even more European Union work on
select committees. At the moment the members of the select committees
choose their own programmes; they look at every aspect over the
year. As you know the Liaison Committee gave guidance to select
committees to help them to look right the way across their ministerial
responsibilities during the Parliamentary year. They have already
had to ask very specifically for extra assistance because those
of you who are select committee chairmen will know how very stretched
the staff are and, even with the extra assistance, to unload a
responsibility like looking at the extra legislation without it
being something which the committee itself has chosen as being
relevant to the work they are already doing, it seems to me would
add an enormous extra burden.
Q176 Sir Nicholas Winterton: If the select
committees do not do it, Gwyneth, who does it? Who can do it impartially
on behalf of Parliament in the UK?
Mrs Dunwoody: I have to say to
you that if select committees, for example, undertook this responsibility
one immediate effect would be to cut out two thirds of the Parliament.
At the present time, if I wish, I can go along and take part in
European Scrutiny. I cannot vote but I can go along to the European
Scrutiny Committee and ask questions.
Q177 Chairman: Standing committee.
Mrs Dunwoody: Yes. I am afraid
I am so old; when I joined them they were called European Scrutiny.
It is a real power; you have the ability to go along. I can give
you an instance: one of the hazards we face as a select committee
is that we are not given sufficient notice of what is happening
and we suddenly discover, for example, that there was a meeting
concerning Galileo.
Q178 Mr Pike: I chaired the committee.
Mrs Dunwoody: Of course you did,
Mr Pike, and extraordinarily well and with great tact as is always
the case. However, the reality was that we were given very short
notice that this actually had to be examined. I am sure Mr Pike
himself had only just been told. I went along; no other member
of my committee was able to get there because of the shortness
of the notice and I took part in that debate. If that had been
referred as a very specific piece of legislation to my committee
everyone else would have been excluded and would not have been
able to ask questions nor take any cognisance of what the minister
said. Indeed, if we came out with a report, that report would
go through the normal select committee procedures, there would
still be six weeks for the Government to answer it and then we
would have to get in the queue to get it debated on the floor
of the house. It is not a rapid way. It does not improve the quality
of scrutiny, it actually puts it back.
Q179 Mr Shepherd: Can it affect the outcome?
Mrs Dunwoody: I am sorry to tell
you, Mr Shepherd, I think it is extraordinarily unlikely that
it will affect the outcome. If that were the case, believe me
I would be number one in the queue to get all of this legislation
referred to my committee but then frankly the select committee
would be doing something totally different because there is an
enormous bulk of regulations.
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