Select Committee on European Communities Twelfth Report


21. COMMISSION GREEN PAPER ON PUBLIC PROCUREMENT (12978/96)


Letter from Lord Geddes, Chairman of Sub-Committee B, to Angela Knight, MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury

  The above document was considered by Sub-Committee B at its meeting this morning.

  The Sub-Committee was struck by the fact that, while the Green Paper is dated 27 November 1996, and the covering note from the Council Secretariat is dated 8 December, your EM was not submitted to Parliament until 19 February 1997. The Sub-Committee would be grateful for an explanation of why it took so long for the EM to be submitted, bearing in mind that the consultation period on the Green Paper expires at the end of March.

  I understand that you have now written to Lord Tordoff, the Chairman of the Select Committee, with the results of the Treasury consultation exercise on the Green Paper referred to in your EM. Although your letter did not arrive in time to be considered at this morning's meeting, the Sub-Committee was able to agree to lift the scrutiny reserve on the Green Paper at that meeting. It did, however, express an interest in the subject of public procurement and will consider with interest any further proposals that the Commission may bring forward on the basis of the ideas contained in the Green Paper.

20 March 1997


 
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