Letter from the Chairman of the Committee
to the Leader of the House and Lord Privy Seal
As you may know, the Foreign Affairs Committee
is preparing a report on "Foreign Policy Aspects of the EU
Reform Treaty". We are taking evidence on this topic from
the Foreign Secretary on 12 December.
I am writing because I have learned from the
FCO that one option that is being considered within Government
is for the bill to allow the new treaty to pass into UK law to
be introduced before Christmas, with a Second Reading debate in
the week the House returns in January (w/c 7 January).
The Foreign Affairs Committee will be overseas
during the period 7-10 January, and accordingly I very much hope
that Second Reading of the bill will not be scheduled for a date
during that week. It would be very unfortunate if members of the
Committee were prevented from contributing to the debate because
of a clash of timing.
I hope it will also be possible to give the
Committee as much advance notice as possible of the timing of
the bill's introduction and Second Reading, in order to allow
us to make the necessary arrangements for agreeing our report.
26 November 2007
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