Letter from Lord Tordoff, Chairman of the Committee,
to the Rt Hon Michael Howard, QC, MP, Home Secretary
I am writing in reply to your letters of 13, 25 and 28 November
concerning third pillar proposals. I am grateful to you for keeping
the committee informed about the progress of third pillar matters,
but I am concerned about the apparent delay in depositing these
documents in Parliament.
The first document, Proposal for a Programme of Law Enforcement
Co-operation (OISIN) was deposited with your letter of 13 November,
but the date on document 10369/96 was 2 October 1996.
The second, Presidency proposal for a draft Council Resolution
on measures to combat and dismantle illicit cultivation and production
of drugs within the EU, was dated 28 October but was not deposited
until 25 November.
The third document, Presidency proposal for a draft Council
Resolution on sentencing for serious illicit drug trafficking,
was dated 7 November, but was not deposited until 28 November.
All three documents were, I understand, discussed at the
Justice and Home Affairs Council on 28 and 29 November. Effectively,
therefore, we had no opportunity to scrutinise the last two of
these documents as they were submitted only days before they
were due for final decision.
As you know, your officials are in correspondence with the
Clerk of the Committee about ways to improve the handling of
third pillar documents. I hope that together we can find ways
to avoid a repetition of delays such as these, which make proper
scrutiny impossible.
12 December 1996
Letter from Lord Tordoff, Chairman of the Committee,
to the Rt Hon Michael Howard, QC, MP, Home Secretary
Thank you for your letter of 10th March[11] enclosing
the Dutch Presidency's provisional work programmes for the three
Third Pillar Steering Groups, together with an explanatory note.
These documents are of considerable interest to the Select
Committee and its Sub-Committees. However, the delay in deposit
of these documents reduces their usefulness considerably. If national
parliaments are to play an effective role in scrutinising the
work done under the Third Pillar, it is essential that they should
have as much notice as possible not only of texts of proposals,
but also of work programmes and Council agendas. Without this
information, it is extremely difficult for us to plan our own
work programmes effectively.
13 March 1997
Letter from the Rt Hon Michael Howard, QC, MP, Home
Secretary, to Lord Tordoff Chairman of the Committee
Parliamentary scrutiny of Third Pillar documents
Thank you for your letters of 12 December and 13 March drawing
attention once again to delays in the deposit of particular Third
Pillar documents for scrutiny.
I entirely understand, and sympathise with, your concern
about the apparent delays which have occurred in depositing these
Third Pillar documents in Parliament. I was therefore glad to
see that in Sub-Committee F's enquiry into House of Lords scrutiny
of the Third Pillar, as well as in the correspondence that I understand
is going on between my officials and the Clerk of your Committee,
the timing of submission of documents has been identified as
a key issue for consideration. Let me assure you that my officials
and I will co-operate fully with the Committee and Sub-Committee
in trying to find ways of improving the handling of Third Pillar
documents. I do not promise that we shall be able to eliminate
all the delays, but we shall look for ways of ensuring that any
avoidable delay is kept to a minimum.
21 March 1997
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