Select Committee on European Communities Eleventh Report


B. CASES WHERE EFFECTIVE SCRUTINY HAS NOT BEEN POSSIBLE

36. COUNCIL DIRECTIVE AMENDING DIRECTIVE 95/21/EC CONCERNING THE ENFORCEMENT, IN RESPECT OF SHIPPING USING COMMUNITY PORTS AND SAILING IN THE WATERS UNDER THE JURISDICTION OF THE MEMBER STATES, OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS FOR SHIP SAFETY, POLLUTION PREVENTION AND SHIPBOARD LIVING AND WORKING CONDITIONS (PORT STATE CONTROL) (10278/97)

Letter from Lord Tordoff, Chairman of the Committee, to Glenda Jackson CBE MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions

  This proposal was considered by Sub-Committee B at their meeting on Thursday 21 November.

  The Sub-Committee have asked me to write to you to express their concern over your Department's delay in providing an Explanatory Memorandum on this document. I understand that the proposal was received by the Council Secretariat on 29 July this year. It has therefore taken your Department three months to provide the Memorandum, dated 28 October, which makes no reference to this delay.

  I would therefore appreciate any explanation you have for this delay. However, given the non-contentious nature of the proposal, the Sub-Committee have agreed to clear the document in advance of the December Transport Council. This letter therefore lifts the scrutiny reserve.

26 November 1997

Letter from Glenda Jackson CBE MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, to Lord Tordoff, Chairman of the Committee

  Thank you for your letter of 26 November which lifts your Committee's scrutiny reserve on the above proposal.

  Your letter asks for an explanation of why our Explanatory Memorandum (EM) was dated 28 October when the proposal was received by the Council Secretariat on 29 July this year. I apologise about this delay; it occurred because the European Secretariat of the Cabinet Office did not receive from Brussels a copy of the text to deposit. As soon as they became aware that a text of the proposal had been issued, they obtained it and deposited it on 17 October. An EM was then triggered and submitted to your Committee on 28 October.

  Clearly there is a limit to our ability to rectify the omissions of others. But I have asked my officials to double check with Cabinet Office whenever they receive a potentially depositable text for which they have not been asked to produce an EM.

9 December 1997




 
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