Meeting Summary
The Committee took oral evidence from the Leader
of the House on its outstanding debate recommendations.
The Committee also considered the following documents:
Ports
For some time we have been concerned about a draft
Regulation to establish a regulatory framework to improve the
efficiency and competitiveness of all EU ports, on which there
is an outstanding debate recommendation. A General Approach on
the draft Regulation was agreed in Council in October 2014, with
the UK abstaining on scrutiny grounds. The Minister now writes
to confirm that the European Parliament is now turning its attention
to this issue. The Government had previously informed us of its
intention to lobby MEPs regarding the draft Regulation, and the
Minister explains that he accordingly went to Brussels on 19 January
to speak to key UK MEPs in the European Conservatives and Reformists
and Socialists and Democrats (S&D) political groupings. Regarding
the outstanding debate in the House on the draft Regulation, the
Minister notes that we will have the opportunity to ask the Leader
of the House about this, during our evidence session with him
today. We respond by asking the Minister to also personally press
strongly within the Government machine for an urgent debate on
this matter.
Integrating labour markets
We consider a draft Regulation seeking to improve
the operation of EURES, a network of public employment services
encompassing Member States, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland which
comprises an internet portal on which job vacancies, applications
and CVs are loaded. The Government told us that UK job vacancies
accounted for more than 60% of the vacancies on the portal, as
unlike many other Member States, the UK had, until recently, loaded
all vacancies held by Jobcentre Plus onto the EURES portal. It
anticipated that a stronger obligation on all Member States to
advertise their vacancies on the EURES portal would rectify this
imbalance. The Government's position has evolved during the course
of negotiations. Whilst continuing to support the proposal to
require all Member States to share their vacancies with EURES,
the UK has also sought to ensure that "employers have a choice
over whether they advertise their vacancy in the UK or EU-wide".
In July 2014, the Prime Minister pledged to "massively restrict"
the number of UK job vacancies on the EURES portal.
A General Approach on this proposal was agreed by
the Council last December which would appear substantially to
dilute the obligation to advertise all job vacancies available
through Member States' public employment services on EURES. We
ask the Minister whether she considers that the introduction of
new provisions on employer flexibility are sufficiently robust
to withstand a challenge based on the prohibition of discrimination
on grounds of nationality. We also ask her to provide examples
of the type of job vacancies that the UK would no longer be bound
to advertise on EURES on the grounds that they form part of active
labour market policies. Meanwhile, we retain the draft Regulation
under scrutiny and look forward to receiving further updates.
Transparent pricing of medicines
The 1989 "Transparency Directive" establishes
minimum procedural safeguards to ensure that national cost-containment
measures to regulate the pricing of medicines and determine whether
they qualify for public funding are taken in an open and transparent
manner and do not constitute an unwarranted restriction on the
free movement of goods. The Commission considers that while the
1989 Directive has helped to create "a basic culture of transparency"
in the pricing and reimbursement mechanisms developed by Member
States, it has not kept pace with new challenges. In March 2012
the Commission therefore proposed a new directive which retained
the core principles of the 1989 Directive but proposed some new
elements, including shorter time limits for pricing and reimbursement
decisions, intended to give quicker access to medicines and to
allow innovative pharmaceutical companies to reap the full benefits
of market exclusivity for their newly patented medicines. Discussions
in Council proved difficult, and in March 2013, a new Directive
was proposed which, amongst other changes, proposed longer time
limits for pricing and reimbursement decisions. The proposals
have now been withdrawn on the grounds that there is "no
foreseeable agreement", and we therefore clear them from
scrutiny.
| 
