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Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, the Minister is a reasonable man, and I shall ask him about a

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pragmatic point. I speak with a prejudice: I am an Anglican clergyman who has never been considered for a bishopric. Might it not be an idea for the appointments commission to interview the candidates? I have been interviewed many times. I gather that people say that bishops might be considered for six sees but should not be interviewed six times; one interview is enough, allowing a little for maturity. Will the Minister exercise his considerable influence on the Prime Minister to see whether an interview might help?

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, the noble Lord has also been a reverend canon. He said that he had never been considered for a bishopric: what he means is that he was never successfully considered for a bishopric.

I do not know where all these things will end. We must go cautiously and carefully. Perhaps we could elect 20 per cent of the bishops in the first place.

The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich: My Lords, far be it from me to express any dissatisfaction with the present system. Does the Minister agree that the most recent debates in the General Synod have indicated a mind overwhelmingly in favour of the present relationship between Church and state in the appointment of bishops, surprising as that may seem to some?

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is, I think, right so far. Of course, the discussion to which I referred, on the document produced by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry of Southwark, has not taken place. The Church steering group is considering recommendations but, as I understand it, has come to no conclusions. I also understand that the group intends to report back on an interim basis to the synod in July, in the hope that it might come to a final conclusion by the latter part of the year. It is very much the subject of discussion at the moment.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, does the Minister accept that, given the deep emphasis placed on transparency by this Government, a little bit more transparency in current processes would be acceptable and that there is no reason why, for example, the Prime Minister should not make it clear publicly that political considerations will not play a role in the major appointment in the Church of England now under way?

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I do not think that there is any serious question that over recent years political considerations have had anything to do with the choice either of bishops or archbishops in the Church of England.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, in considering the matter, does the noble and learned Lord believe that

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the Church as a whole has something to learn from the ultra-democratisation of political parties in recent years?

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I am not sure which political party has been subject to a great infusion of ultra-democracy. However, I repeat that there is a model not too far away which seems to work rather well. Recently the bishopric of St David's became vacant and those who have to deal with the choice of a successor to fill that vacancy are lay persons and clergy from the Church in Wales. I do not say that the Church in Wales is perfect on every occasion—necessarily.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, since we have a little extra time, does the noble and learned Lord recall that the Duke of Wellington nearly appointed the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh to Canterbury until someone pointed out that there was a second Archbishop of Armagh who was an Anglican?

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, yes, and I hate those nit-picking points, as the Duke of Wellington actually remarked at the time.

Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, the way in which the noble and learned Lord expressed his first reference to the situation in Wales could be taken to indicate that he thought that disestablishment was necessarily bound up with a change in the method of appointment of bishops and archbishops. However, does he agree that those are two separate matters which should be considered separately?

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, they are entirely separate, as was indicated by my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester, and from which proposition I did not dissent.

Business

3.2 p.m.

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, your Lordships will wish to know that I propose to table tonight and to move tomorrow a Motion for an humble Address to Her Majesty the Queen conveying the sympathy of this House on the death of Her Royal Highness the Princess Margaret. That humble Address will be taken as first business tomorrow.

Second Parliamentary Chamber for Europe: EUC Report

3.3 p.m.

Lord Brabazon of Tara rose to move, That this House takes note of the report of the European Union Committee, A Second Parliamentary Chamber for Europe: An unreal solution to some real problems (7th Report, HL Paper 48).

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The noble Lord said: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to introduce this report for debate. This is the first debate that I have led in my capacity as chairman of your Lordships' Select Committee on the European Union and it prompts my first remark. I wish to pay a very warm tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, since elevated to the post of Chairman of Committees, who, as my predecessor in the role of Principal Deputy Chairman and thus chairman of the European Union Committee, not only conceived the idea for this inquiry, but also got it off to a flying start. I am glad to see that the noble Lord is in his place and I thank him for all his work, both on this matter and more generally.

I also take this opportunity to thank the other members of the Select Committee, in particular the small group—the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, and the noble Lords, Lord Tomlinson, Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Williamson of Horton—who accompanied me to Brussels where we heard the majority of the evidence. All, I am glad to see, have put down their names to speak in this debate.

Finally, I thank those noble Lords who, like the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, served on the Select Committee at the start of this inquiry but subsequently left it—the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, who, I am glad to see, is to speak, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, and the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain.

I thank too Tom Mohan, who, as Clerk, began this inquiry. Tom and the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, worked together for many years on the committee and are now overseeing the passage of private legislation through your Lordships' House. I wish them well. Last, but not least, I thank Simon Burton, our new Clerk, for all the work he has done on the preparation of this report and congratulate him on his rapid grasp of the issues facing the committee.

The report is produced, as are most reports from your Lordships' committees, as the unanimous report of the Select Committee. No member of the Select Committee divided the committee on the report, or on any of its individual conclusions or phrasing. However, I should record that one noble Lord, the noble Lord, Lord Lamont of Lerwick, expressed himself unhappy with some of what we had produced. I am sorry that he is not able to take part in the debate today due to absence abroad, so we shall not be able to hear his objections.

Turning to the substance of the report, I should stress that while this is a report on the proposal for a second parliamentary chamber for Europe, I hope that noble Lords speaking today will not confine themselves to that topic alone. Indeed, the report itself is not so confined. Bearing in mind the weight of evidence received, a report on a second chamber alone could have been very short and might have consisted of only a single sentence, "This is a bad idea". I shall return to that theme in a moment, but I express my hope that the debate, like the report, will range more widely over some of the more significant issues which underlie the proposals for a second chamber.

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I was grateful to receive last Friday the Government's response to our report. I shall make a number of references to that response during the course of my remarks. But in particular I welcome the Government's strong endorsement of the role of national parliaments in EU scrutiny.

As the report makes clear, the proposal for a second chamber is not new. But the idea was given impetus by the Prime Minister's speech in Warsaw on 6th October 2000 when he specifically argued for the creation of a second chamber of the European Parliament consisting of representatives of national parliaments. Their task would include reviewing the EU's work in the light of an agreed statement of principles concerning subsidiarity and providing democratic oversight of the common foreign and security policy. I note that the response implies in paragraphs 4 and 6 that the second chamber is just "one option" and that there are "several other ideas around".

The committee was very grateful to the Prime Minister for raising this matter as he did. Whatever the merits of the specific proposal, we all thought that raising a debate on these issues was timely, both in view of the apparent disconnection of the citizens of Europe from their institutions and at a time when a convention had been appointed to prepare for the next intergovernmental conference. However, we did not conclude that the second chamber idea itself was a good one. Our witnesses were almost unanimous in this. Many of the practical and political objections to the proposal are set out in Part 4 of the report and I do not intend to repeat them here. I do, however, look forward to hearing the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, set out the case for a second chamber, and the practicalities of how it might work, in more detail.

When we took evidence from Foreign Office officials to try to flesh out the Prime Minister's remarks, it was quite clear that at the time, in December 2000, the Government's thinking on a second chamber was, as admitted, at an early stage. I hope that, in his reply, the Minister will be able to enlighten us further. I also look forward with interest to hearing whether other noble Lords who are to speak support the second chamber idea in itself.

Part 5 of the committee's report is perhaps rather ambitiously headed "The real issues". In taking evidence on the second chamber proposal, it was clear to us that the proposal was intended to address genuine concerns about the European Union. We divided those concerns into three sections: areas where the oversight of European policy was thought to be weak; constitutional issues; and democracy issues. As far as areas of weak oversight were concerned, the committee accepts that there is a need to think further about how the common foreign and security policy is to be scrutinised. This forms the second pillar under the Treaty on European Union and accordingly is conducted mainly through diplomatic channels where fewer instruments are subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

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Our conclusion was that a number of bodies already exist which could scrutinise the CFSP: national parliaments in the first instance, the WEU, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and NATO. We concluded that it would be for the next IGC to determine the future of these various bodies. I look forward in particular to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, on this matter. For the moment, I merely ask the Minister to confirm that the convention will be able to consider these issues because they do not appear to be covered specifically by the Laeken declaration, and further to confirm that they will come high up on the agenda for the next IGC.

Some suggested that the Commission's annual work programme should be scrutinised by a new second chamber. Our conclusion was that this task in itself would not merit the creation of a new body and that national parliaments should carry out this work. The government response, set out in paragraph 16, proposes an annual EU agenda to,


    "allow all Europe's citizens to see what was being done in their name".

Would that be in addition to or as a replacement for the annual work programme of the Commission?

As far as underlying constitutional issues are concerned, we wholly support the Prime Minister in his attempt to clarify the competencies of the European Union. We accordingly support the statement of the principles of competencies and conclude that, in the absence of any such document, the proposal for a second chamber is premature. We also conclude that it would be impractical to involve a second chamber in revision of the treaties.

More generally, we concluded that,


    "it clearly contributes to the lack of interest in the European Union that there is little understanding of how it really works".

Whatever one's views on the European question, we can all agree that you can neither support nor criticise the institutional arrangements with any degree of authority unless you have an understanding of what they are.

Perhaps the area where our report ranges widest from the starting point of a second chamber is in the paragraphs on democracy. We are, however, conscious that we were not able to do a thorough job on these issues as our evidence and our time were limited. We note, however, that our sister committee in the House of Commons—the European Scrutiny Committee—is conducting a full inquiry into democracy and accountability in Europe and we look forward to the results of its labours.

Careful reading of paragraph 62 of our report will reveal that we accept that the proposal that the Council, when acting as a legislature, should operate in a more transparent way is a proposal made in a genuine attempt to increase accountability.

We all agreed that achieving greater accountability would significantly help reconnection of citizens with the institutions of Europe but, having discussed this matter among ourselves—and some members of our committee have considerable experience of the European negotiation process—we agreed that

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governments would be unlikely to agree to such increased transparency in the near future. In this regard, I note the proposals that the Convention on the Future of Europe might hold all its meetings in public. Will the institutions of the Union follow this example?

Our conclusion on the question of the accountability of Ministers was that governments should make every effort to be accountable to national parliaments both in advance of Council meetings and in reporting back. We are currently considering how we can make a contribution in this area. I look forward to hearing more from the Minister on this point.

Our report also urges those debating the future shape of Europe—and by this we mean both the convention and governments—to take account of the case for greater accountability and transparency given the pressures of enlargement; to consider the role of the presidency of the Council of Ministers; and to look closely at the role of the General Affairs Council. I am sure that various noble Lords will pursue these matters in the debate.

I draw attention to one final section of our report. This concerns the role of COSAC. As many of your Lordships speaking today will know, COSAC is the forum in which the European scrutiny committees of national parliaments get together once in every presidency. This forum was established in 1989 and gained greater authority when the Amsterdam treaty in 1997 called for COSAC to make contributions to the institutions of the European Union.

As our report indicates, many of your Lordships who have attend COSAC have been disappointed. There is no consensus among national parliaments about its role; the agenda consists usually of broad debates; there is no permanent secretariat; and, in attempting to adopt resolutions and conclusions, the output of COSAC often degenerates to the lowest common denominator needed to secure general agreement on a text in a very limited time.

We concluded that COSAC has a value in exchanging information and providing networks. We also concluded that COSAC was,


    "an opportunity missed for strengthening national parliamentary scrutiny".

We would wish to see COSAC return to its original character as a forum for the exchange of views about national parliamentary approaches to the EU, and that its debates should accordingly be less general and more focused on the scrutiny role. We will be pressing, with others, to ensure that COSAC in future primarily focuses on the techniques and practical problems of parliamentary scrutiny of EU affairs. Again, I note that the government response calls for a "more operative role" for COSAC. I wonder whether the Minister, in his reply, could tell us more about what that means.

The response also, in paragraph 10, reminds us of the Government's commitment to the six-week period for parliamentary scrutiny enshrined in the Amsterdam protocol. But will they give an

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undertaking to monitor how well they deliver on this and report back to us? Will they also report regularly to Parliament on cases of scrutiny override?

In conclusion, the report's overall message is of the need for co-operation between national parliaments and between national parliaments and the European Parliament in ensuring thorough scrutiny and democratic accountability.

The perceived lack of democratic legitimacy in the Union—often referred to as a democratic deficit but which some, including our committee, prefer to see in terms of a disconnection between citizens and the institutions that have been established—is a serious worry as the European Union moves forward, both given the pressures of enlargement and given the increasing tendency for issues to be taken forward outside the normal democratic processes.

We believe that national parliaments, representing as they do their citizens, have a strong role to play in ensuring that those citizens both understand and can contribute to, and feel that they have some control over, the workings of the European institutions. This report is produced in that spirit.

I look forward to the debate and, particularly, to the Minister's reply.

Moved, That this House takes note of the report of the European Union Committee, A Second Parliamentary Chamber for Europe: An unreal solution to some real problems (7th Report, HL Paper 48).—(Lord Brabazon of Tara.)

3.16 p.m.

Lord Grenfell: My Lords, I congratulate our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, on having successfully carried to a conclusion the inquiry instituted by his predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff. I also express our thanks to our previous Clerk, Mr Tom Mohan, and to our present Clerk, Mr Simon Burton, who produced a first-class draft report.

This has proven to be a well worthwhile and timely inquiry, given the recent launching of the preparations for the 2004 Intergovernmental Conference. I am sure that our representatives—one of whom, the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, I am glad to see in his place—will make good use of it.

I confess that at the outset of this inquiry, in which I had the privilege of participating, I was a supporter of the idea of a second chamber for the European Parliament, but in the course of the inquiry I changed my mind. I found the arguments made against it simply more persuasive than those made for it.

That said, it is quite clear that the real problems for which I thought a second chamber might provide workable solutions remain to be resolved. The disconnection between the individual citizen and the EU's institutions is still a serious problem. At the parliamentary level, national parliamentarians, the directly elected representatives of the people, are still denied adequate input into the agenda-setting and decision-making processes in Brussels; there is no

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collective scrutiny by the people's elected representatives of intergovernmental co-operation in second and third pillar areas; nor do national parliaments have a collective role in scrutinising the operation of the principles of subsidiarity—and that may well be the most significant deficiency of all.

What first drew me into the corner of those advocating a second chamber was an awareness of the need to create an open political class across the Union. Larry Siedentop, the lecturer in political thought at Oxford and a fellow of Keble College, in his excellent book, Democracy in Europe, proposed two prerequisites for creating that open political class and argued that a European senate could help to meet them. The first prerequisite was, as he put it,


    "to provide the nation-states of the European Union with more effective guarantees against centralization, against encroachments by a Brussels bureaucracy which threaten the dispersal of power and would make the Union less sensitive than it ought to be to the variety of attitudes and habits in Europe".

The second prerequisite which he saw a European senate helping to meet was the encouragement of greater devolution of authority and power within nation states, so that regional autonomy became the vehicle for improving the democratic credentials of national political classes and brought national governments closer to the people. To that end, Siedentop would have halve the seats in a European senate taken up by elected representatives of national regions, but on the strict condition that each region seeking to be represented satisfied certain standards of autonomy. As he put it:


    "A European Senate, formally charged with both protecting national autonomy and with encouraging devolution within nation-states, could play an important part in creating the kind of political class that Europe desperately needs—one that is open, suspicious of bureaucracy, and sensitive to the claims of social variety".

I found these arguments seductive, and for me they remain so. The problem lies not with the goals that Larry Siedentop's European senate would be designed to achieve, but with the fact that the creation of a second chamber as a means of achieving those goals is, on the evidence collected in this inquiry and reflected in this report, the wrong route to the right remedies.

The objections raised to the creation of a second chamber are set out with great clarity and persuasiveness in this report, and they have just been eloquently rehearsed by our chairman, Lord Brabazon, in his excellent opening speech. There is therefore no need for me to tread again over well-covered ground. The more pressing question is how the real problems to which a second chamber is an unreal solution are going to be resolved. Here the report makes some very sensible and practical suggestions. I shall mention a few that strike me as particularly important.

The first is that the monitoring of the Union institutions' observance of the subsidiarity principle is too central to the interests of national parliaments to be left exclusively to the European Parliament. Nation states are the intended beneficiaries of subsidiarity, and therefore national parliaments should also be

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monitoring it. That task would be made easier and more meaningful for both the European and the national parliaments if, as our report says, a clearer set of competences were agreed for the Union's various elements. The argument that a formal defining of competences is one more step down the road to a European superstate should be treated with the contempt that it deserves.

Monitoring subsidiarity should be a crucial component of a national parliament's overall scrutiny function, and national parliamentary scrutiny of the decisions of national governments in the European context most certainly needs strengthening. By strengthening, we mean, do we not, the spreading of best practice? Given the differing roles, powers and prerogatives of individual national parliaments across the Union, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, in his evidence, that that strengthening needs to be done by the national parliaments themselves working individually and collectively. Surely the appropriate forum for collective action is COSAC—a body still in search of a meaningful role somewhere between the unacceptable aspirations to legislative authority at the one extreme and aimless, unfocused debate at the other. The time has come to take a serious look at COSAC's role.

As the report insists, effective scrutiny assumes the full discharge by Ministers of their responsibilities in respect of Council decisions. That ought to prompt us here in this Parliament to reflect seriously on whether the flow of information from government to Parliament is adequate and timely. Successive Ministers for Europe have been very accessible and mostly informative to our European Union Select Committee, and we are grateful for that. However, on whether the overall flow of information is adequate and timely, I have to say that "could do better" would be my judgment. That is not to say that one should hold the Government exclusively responsible for all shortcomings; Brussels must bear its share of the blame.

Another factor militating against effective scrutiny is the Council's glaring lack of transparency, as our report rightly notes. However, that is something that successive governments have been prepared to tolerate and even connive in, and unless and until more daylight is let in on the Council performing its legislative function, parliamentary scrutiny will never be the efficient tool of democracy that it is meant to be. That necessity has been highlighted in the report, and I particularly welcome the call on those debating the future of the Council under enlargement to take account of the case for greater accountability and transparency in its procedures. A reform of the Council's working procedures is long overdue and now a matter of urgency. The functions of the General Affairs Council should be examined at the same time.

I heartily endorse the report's recognition of the importance of co-operation between national parliaments, with the involvement of the European Parliament where appropriate. Europe's parliamentarians really do need to meet. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe—I am delighted to see the recently

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retired President of the Assembly, the noble Lord, Lord Russell-Johnston, in his place in the Chamber—and COSAC certainly provide opportunities, but the proceedings are not particularly focused on inter-parliamentary co-operation. Bilateral contacts are also very important indeed. However, here in our Parliament, that is left largely to all-party groups whose lack of financial resources tends to make exchange visits embarrassingly one-sided. I recognise the constraints of time-scales and diaries, as noted in the report, but it should not be beyond the wisdom and ingenuity of parliaments and governments to facilitate better the all-important contacts that are the sine qua non of good parliamentary co-operation among states.

As I said at the outset, I think that this inquiry has been very worthwhile and produced a very useful and timely report. I am happy that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister was doing no more than flying a kite when he made his proposal in Warsaw. He has certainly been in interesting company. As I recall remarking in one of our early evidence sessions, when personalities as diverse as Chris Patten and Danny Cohn-Bendit are making similar noises, something must be stirring in the long grass. Well, we have cut back the grass a bit and seen what is there, but we are not terribly impressed. There is a better way, and I think that the report points us in that direction.

The Council's working practices must be reformed to make it more accountable, and scrutiny by national parliaments must be strengthened. It should not be beyond the capability of member states individually and collectively to achieve that. However, as in so many matters, it will depend on political will, and we have to hope that that political will will be there.

3.27 p.m.

Lord Jopling: My Lords, I endorse the comments just made by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, on the admirable way in which the Select Committee has been chaired by two chairmen and advised by two Clerks. It has been an excellently run committee which has been involved in most intriguing issues. I hope that we have arrived at the right conclusions and recommendations. I also certainly endorse the committee's views, which I shall summarise. I agree, first, most strongly that there is a need for better parliamentary oversight.

Secondly, I agree that a second parliamentary chamber is not the answer and that it would not fill the democratic deficit which others have pointed out. I also think that a second chamber would put MPs who want to make a success of two parliamentary careers in danger of making a mess of them both. I believe that it is impossible for an MP to make a success of two parliamentary careers in two countries at the same time. I shall return to that point.

Thirdly, I think that there is an opportunity to use existing organisations to perform some of the roles that need to be performed in the newly evolving operations and manifestations of the European Union.

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Is there a need for parliamentary oversight? There most certainly is, as has been identified by so many people, not least the Prime Minister. A few moments ago, the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, referred to the very wide breadth of people who recognise that need, from Mr Patten and the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, on the one side to Daniel Cohn-Bendit on the other. That deficit is widely recognised. There is a need to bring European affairs closer to the citizens of the member states. That is especially important in dealing with the problem of subsidiarity, which I do not think anyone can claim is properly covered at the moment.

A second parliamentary chamber is not a suitable vehicle if it is set up like the early version of the European Parliament in the 1970s and early 1980s. The European Parliament was made up of national parliamentarians who had a dual mandate with Westminster. They were selected on a party nomination by the Whips. I recall that at the time many MPs, when offered the possibility of being selected for the European Parliament, said that they would not touch it as they felt that it would interfere with a Westminster career. They were quite right in that.

I think of MEPs—I refer only to members of my own party—with a dual mandate in 1979 when a change of government occurred. A number of those members were not considered for ministerial office at that time as they had become somewhat semi-detached from Westminster given their other responsibilities in the European Parliament. Some of them most strongly deserved ministerial office, but, as I say, they were not considered because they had not "caught the eye" in previous years due to their frequent and necessary absences on European Parliament duties. Therefore, whatever comes out of the IGC—I, too, am extremely glad that the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, is present—I hope that above all there is no suggestion of having a body that is anything like the European Parliament before it was directly elected. That was a great mistake and it was not, frankly, in MPs' best interests to be part of it.

That situation of semi-detachment arises through the formal constitution of a major institution such as the European Parliament. Once parliamentarians attached to a vast formal institution carry out parliamentary oversight duties, more and more and more of their time is taken up there. The only practical way that Members of Parliament could be involved without falling between two stools as I have just described would be if the institution concerned was less formal than an organisation such as the European Parliament, or a second parliamentary chamber as it would inevitably soon become.

We already have a number of interparliamentary institutions run on less formal lines than, for instance, the European Parliament. I refer to the Council of Europe which, as far as the United Kingdom delegation is concerned, also includes membership of the Western European Union. I refer also to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly—I declare an interest in that I have just returned to that body and the British delegation after a gap of five years, having previously

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been a member for 10 years—and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly where I led the British delegation for, I believe, the first seven years of its existence. The IGC could consider whether those organisations could take on an extra duty. They could be adapted to set up working groups with an additional membership of perhaps one or more Members of the European Parliament so that the Parliament had an input. Those groups could deal with a number of issues.

The Select Committee report makes that recommendation at paragraph 45. It is suggested that those interparliamentary bodies could set up working groups. That view is endorsed by Sub-Committee C, of which I have the honour to be chairman, which last week produced its report on the European security and defence policy. Paragraph 75 mirrors the recommendation we are debating this afternoon. I hope that we shall come back to the matter of CFSP at some future time. Those existing parliamentary bodies I have mentioned could be asked to take on an additional responsibility through the working groups I have suggested to deal with such matters as CFSP and defence issues in the interim between now and 2004. It might be useful to see whether they work. My view is that they could be made to work. I refer especially to defence and similar matters where the Commission and the European Parliament have only a limited input as they are intergovernmental organisations.

I am somewhat puzzled by the response which the Government have made to the Select Committee report. I regret to say that it came into my hands when I was already in the Chamber within the past hour. On this issue I am somewhat surprised to read in the Government's response at paragraph 4:


    "And thirdly, the Chamber—

that is the second parliamentary chamber—


    "could provide oversight of areas of EU activity, which go beyond the traditional work of the Community, such as European defence, and justice and home affairs".

The Government state strangely at paragraph 12—this is what I really cannot understand—


    "parliamentary accountability for CFSP decisions is most appropriately ensured at the national level and draws to the Committee's attention its commitment to ensuring that there are therefore effective arrangements for UK national Parliamentary scrutiny. The Government notes the committee's views on the value of informal contact with other national parliamentarians. While recognising that this is of course a matter for Parliament to take forward as it sees fit, the Government notes that the short time-lines for many CFSP decisions may in practice restrict the time that is available for such contacts on individual CFSP decisions".

I am puzzled by that because the recommendation that appears in the Select Committee's report, to which I referred earlier, and in the report of Sub-Committee C comes directly from a letter that I received from the Government, which said that they believe that in the mean time—between now and 2004—it would be wiser if the three parliamentary bodies carried out those duties of parliamentary oversight. That is why I suggested—I speak as chairman of Sub-Committee C

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and one who felt that the Government's line was extremely sensible—that we should include the recommendation in the report.

If the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, will forgive me for saying so, I had some part to play in the fact that a similar recommendation appeared in the Select Committee's report. I am rather dumbfounded to find that in their response to the committee's report, the Government seem to be taking a totally different line. We can no doubt explore that later. I guess that the Minister will not be aware of that strange change of emphasis during the past four or five months. He may not have time to get the advice that he will need between now and his wind up to comment on that. If he cannot do so, I should be most grateful for an explanation as soon as possible.

3.41 p.m.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I greatly welcome this debate, as have the two previous speakers. I am not in any sense a European specialist. I know far less about the institutions of the European Union than do most of the speakers in this debate. However, I wanted to speak in this debate because I was a member of the Select Committee when it started working on the report, although I was rotated off it a few months later. I found the subject to be extremely interesting and I therefore followed it. When I left the committee, I had already come to the provisional conclusion that a second chamber consisting of Members of national Parliaments was not a workable solution, and I am glad that the report came to that view.

When discussing a second chamber for the European Parliament, we need to consider what its role would be. The roles of second chambers in different Parliaments in different countries and organisations throughout the world are very different. In a federal system, such as that in the USA, the second chamber usually represents the states within a federation and protects the rights of the states against the centre. That is the case in the USA, where the Senate in theory represents the member states of the Union. Indeed, until the early 20th century, Senators were elected by the state legislatures, not directly by individual voters. In the German Bundesrat, the Members are delegates of the Land governments. In the United Kingdom, the second Chamber—your Lordships' House—plays an entirely different role. We work mainly through detailed consideration and revision of legislation and through our specialist Select Committees.

In the European Union, a second chamber would certainly act as a second chamber on the federal model, representing the member states against the centre. However, that role is to a considerable extent already played by the Council. It is a legislative body; indeed, when a co-decision does not apply, it is the only legislative body. The Council is made up of Ministers who are delegates from national governments. They of course represent governments rather than national Parliaments, but all the member states of the union are democracies and all those national governments are accountable to the voters of their own states. All

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governments unquestionably act in what they see as their national self-interest as part of the Council. So the EU already has two chambers: it has the European Parliament, which is directly elected by the citizens of member states, and the Council, which is made up of delegates of the governments of member states. No useful purpose would be served by adding a third chamber that was made up of representatives of delegates of national Parliaments.

There are also practical difficulties. The experience of the dual mandate before 1979 was very discouraging, as the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, fully pointed out. Even a second chamber that did not expect to meet more than three or four times a year for a few days would be likely to have attendance that was irregular, and its members would give priority to national Parliaments. We know what happens in the reverse case. Three Members of your Lordships' House are Members of the European Parliament—two of them, I am glad to say, sit on these Benches—but none of them is able to be a regular attender. That is no criticism whatever of them; they certainly do attend whenever they are able to and whenever the EU is being debated. However, they are simply too busy with their job as MEPs. That is another indication of the fact that a dual mandate is not viable. A second chamber that had such limited occasion for meeting would fail to build up the cohesion and expertise that a parliamentary body needs.

I echo the words of Mr Andrew Duff, who is a Liberal Democrat MEP. In his written evidence to the Select Committee, he said, at paragraphs 9 and 11:


    "The new body would be composed of national parliamentarians selected in at least 15 different ways who would be expected to devote themselves to long and difficult meetings three or four times a year regardless of the domestic agendas of their own parliaments and national electoral mandates . . . I am unable to gather why or how the government imagines this proposal could add to the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency or democratic legitimacy of the Union".

In their response, the Government hardly put forward what could be described as an enthusiastic case for a new European second chamber. If the Prime Minister had not floated the idea in Warsaw some 16 months ago, I wonder whether the response would even have been as favourable as that.

Does that mean that nothing needs to be done or that nothing can be done? There are things that need to be done, but the creation of a new second chamber is the wrong approach. I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, which appear in paragraph 3 of his memorandum of evidence to the committee. I hope that he will excuse me if I quote his words. He said:


    "I think the biggest single shortcoming of the way in which the 'European Political System' has worked has been in the failure of National Parliaments to monitor properly, and sometimes thoroughly, the actions of their own Governments in the Council of Ministers".

I entirely agree with that view.

There is a serious problem with secrecy. The functions of the Council as a legislative body should certainly be much more open. I do not suggest that detailed negotiations in the Council should be

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conducted in front of television cameras or recorded verbatim in the European equivalent of Hansard. However, enough should be disclosed to enable national Parliaments to scrutinise the activities of their own governments in Council meetings.

Secondly, there should be closer co-operation between national Parliaments and the institutions of the EU. There were a number of references in the evidence to COSAC, most of which were not very favourable. COSAC, of course, is a group that is made up of Members of national Parliaments, it meets twice a year to discuss EU issues and it also has a small representation from the European Parliament. I took part in one such meeting about two years ago in Lisbon. I have to say that, apart from a pleasant weekend in Lisbon, I did not get a great deal out of that meeting, partly because it was very inadequately chaired. It is a useful place for networking, but no more.

By contrast, I also attended two meetings of ad hoc inter-parliamentary conferences in Brussels for Members of the European Parliament and the national parliaments. I found those useful, in particular one that I attended on the subject of corpus juris. From that meeting I obtained a much clearer picture of the views of the other countries on the issues behind the proposals and was able to hear the views of the chairs of the two relevant European parliamentary committees. That leads me to wonder whether COSAC would do better to meet in Brussels rather than rotate around the countries of the presidency. It would enable more contact to take place with the European Parliament and with the Commission and would not restrict contact only to each other.

I also consider there to be scope for closer links between this Parliament and the United Kingdom MEPs. I believe that there should be a more structured relationship. One proposal for reform of your Lordships' House is that we should increase our scrutiny of European Union legislation. MEPs are always extremely helpful in giving evidence to the European Union Select Committee and its sub-committees when they are invited to do so. But one idea would be to have a Joint Select Committee on which MEPs would sit as members along with Members of your Lordships' House. I believe that that would present far fewer administrative difficulties than a second chamber because Select Committee meetings can be fitted in much more easily with the timetables of the European Parliament and your Lordships' House. Perhaps there could even be a tripartite Joint Committee involving the European Parliament and Members of both Houses of this Parliament.

Measures such as those would strengthen the links between Parliament and the European Parliament and could reduce the isolation which is undoubtedly felt by members of the European Parliament. It could also give Parliament a much better idea of what is happening in the institutions of the European Union.

This has been, and will continue to be, a very useful debate. I believe that the committee was correct in criticising the proposals for a second chamber. But I

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also believe that the Select Committee rightly recognised that serious communication problems exist and that it is essential to try to find ways to reduce those problems.

3.52 p.m.

Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, at the outset I identify myself totally with the remarks of praise directed at the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, for his work in starting this inquiry when he was Chairman of the European Union Select Committee and for the work carried out so admirably by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, following his assumption of that responsibility. Of course, in that praise I include the two Clerks—Tom Mohan and Simon Burton—who also changed mid-stream.

Proposals for a bi-cameral European Parliament are not new. Going back into the annals of history, in 1953 the draft treaty drawn up by the Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community for a European political community encapsulated ideas of a European Parliament of two chambers. That proposal was not taken up in 1957 and was not incorporated into the Treaty of Rome, which established the original European Community institutions.

However, since then a large number of variations on the theme have been put forward from diverse sources, some of which have been quoted today. During the 1980s and 1990s, from France, Fabius, Chirac and Mitterrand all put forward different ideas for second chambers. The noble Lords, Lord Brittan and Lord Heseltine, also put forward very interesting ideas. More recently, the President of the Czech Republic, Mr Havel, entered the fray, and a diverse number of German politicians have also given different variations on the theme. We had proposals from Joschka Fischer, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, from Johannes Rau, the German President, and also from the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schro der. Therefore, the idea has been around for some time. The French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, proposed the establishment of a congress of national parliaments to monitor subsidiarity. He also proposed the holding of an annual debate on the state of the Union.

Therefore, when my right honourable friend the Prime Minister trod this ground in his speech in Warsaw on 6th October, he was not treading a particularly new turf; he was going over an area that had been well visited over the previous 50 years. His proposal for a second chamber for the European Parliament—it was that which led the Select Committee to decide to look at the idea in some detail—was for one made up of representatives of national parliaments, essentially with responsibility for two main tasks: first, the monitoring of the operation of the principles of subsidiarity on the basis of a statement of principles; and secondly, to provide the element of a democratic, European level of scrutiny of the common foreign and security policy.

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Many people have addressed the idea of a second chamber when looking at how to remedy perceived weaknesses in relations between nation states and their parliaments and the European Union. I start by agreeing strongly with the conclusion of the European Union Select Committee. At paragraph 33 of its report, it said:


    "The onus is on those who are proposing a second chamber"—

when I say "second chamber", I readily accept what the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, said with regard to third chambers—


    "to prove its practicability, as well as its desirability, before the proposal goes forward".

In that respect, I believe that the proponents of the idea have singularly failed to create that case. They have failed to address adequately the practical problems which exist in abundance.

Some of those problems have been mentioned and I want to reiterate a few. National parliaments could not do the job effectively were a second chamber busy enough to justify its existence. But, on the other hand, were it not busy enough to justify its existence, what would be its purpose and why should either senior politicians or ambitious younger politicians choose to spend their time on it? If it were not busy enough, how would it impact upon public opinion? One objective of the second chamber is supposed to be to connect Europe better to the citizen. If it met as frequently as the Council of Europe or the Western European Union, admirable though the work that they do is, it would hardly impact dramatically upon the citizens of the 15 member states of the European Union.

There are practical problems in abundance: the location; the logistics; the languages; the size; and the cost. Also to be taken into account is how national participants in a second Chamber relate back to their national parliaments. Must they have a mandate from their national parliaments for the attitudes that they take? Are they free agents? What is the level of accountability back to them? And when should a second chamber intervene, if at all, in the legislative process, or will it deal only with non-legislative questions? Of course, that in itself would be a nonsense at a time when there is an increasing demand not only from the European Parliament but from a number of national parliamentarians that as the amount of qualified majority voting increases in Council, so there should be a parallel increase in the amount of legislation that is determined through co-decision. Therefore, there are many practical problems.

Where there are European Union activities in which democracy is not evident and accountability is insufficient—principally, as I said, in the area of common foreign and security policy—other areas also need to be addressed, such as the Commission work programme, subsidiarity, and the statement of principles. None of those justifies the somewhat ad hoc approach of proposing a change to institutional arrangements. Were such institutional changes needed, they could at any time have been on the agenda for inter-governmental conferences at Maastricht, Amsterdam or Nice. If now they are

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perceived to be necessary, they should be thoroughly discussed in the convention in preparation for a 2004 Intergovernmental Conference. However, in the meanwhile there are real problems which need resolution and on which I make the following observations.

The real problems which need attention include better parliamentary scrutiny of European Union decisions in all chambers of national parliaments. That includes our own. Although we produce some excellent reports, we tend to produce big reports on big issues. Yet the vast majority of European Union legislation does not get detailed scrutiny. Therefore, we have an obligation to improve parliamentary scrutiny. In doing so, we are controlling one side of the co-decision making process of the Council of Ministers—a Council of Ministers that, as other noble Lords have said, needs greater openness in its legislative role.

Inside the European Union, we also need a greater determination to pursue policies of critical mass—policies where the EU role will clearly add value—following the injunction that we have heard so many times to do less and do it better. Only by that shall we see clear impact upon the citizen.

I give the example of the great vision in 1992 of completing the European single market. Here we are a decade later still talking about completing the single market. We do not yet have it. Yet we should be encouraging European Union institutions to focus on precisely such policies and not be diverted into new initiatives and new ideas until they have attained the agenda that they have set themselves.

There are many other areas where that is true. We have created a European Bank for Reconstruction and Development when, by changing the articles of the European Investment Bank, we could have managed without creating yet another financial institution. The Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions were created, but without clearly visible benefits in connecting Europe and its decision-making processes to either the citizens or the regions.

The Court of Auditors is growing like Topsy. As a previous report from the European Union Committee said, the need for reform is clear. The European Parliament is already potentially too large with too many places of work. Policies within the European Union, such as the common agricultural policy, cry out for reform if we have enlargement, but we seem to be relying on external factors such as the World Trade Organisation to produce the major impetus of reform for us.

We can do many of those things. They will serve to connect Europe better to the citizen if we do them ourselves and now without getting embroiled in arguments for constitutional change. It is not enough to pretend that creating a further body will assist; it will not. Far from assisting, the proposals for a second chamber create an unreal expectation of the re-connection of Europe to the citizen, which will create only further disillusion with the processes.

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If we want better to connect Europe to the citizen we can take certain immediate actions. We should listen to the advice of Julian Priestley, the Secretary-General of the European Parliament. We should re-think the electoral system for European Parliament elections, with proportional representation, but based on constituencies and voter choice and not further recourse to closed lists, which at best deny the citizen and at worst can appear to be somewhat Stalinist in practice. In his evidence at Question 289, Julian Priestley said:


    "At least at first sight it does not appear that the way in which that electoral system was changed has actually enhanced the connection between Members and the citizens".

Finally, I believe that national parliaments do not need any new powers. They certainly do not need new institutions to hold their governments to account. What they need is a greater input of political will to do so. If my analysis were entirely Machiavellian, I would suspect that the second chamber proposals were intended to flatter national parliaments into a belief that all that is needed is for a few real parliamentarians—that is, national parliamentarians—to discuss issues and thus produce a clarity and understanding among the 400 million European citizens; and that, while believing that, they would forget their historic role and duty of controlling governments, who by their nature are happy with their performance and know that it needs no scrutiny.

4.7 p.m.

Lord Williamson of Horton: My Lords, I am a member of the Select Committee on the European Union. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, who chaired the inquiry, and the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, who launched it. I am glad that in the response from the Government to the report the Government have stated that they are ready to look beyond the second chamber proposal to each of the ideas for strengthening the role of national Parliaments in the context of the convention to take forward the future of Europe process. That is a step forward.

It is evident that a national parliamentary Chamber, such as this House, should give particular attention to new suggestions or proposals for improving the parliamentary scrutiny and oversight of European Union legislation and to improve the relationship between national Parliaments and the European institutions. This is truly our business. In addition, an improved role for national Parliaments is one of the four areas especially highlighted in Declaration 23 annexed to the Nice Treaty for attention and, we hope, valuable recommendations from the convention which is about to start the preparations for the 2004 inter-governmental conference.

The Select Committee has concluded that there are some real problems relating to the oversight in particular of the common foreign and security policy and to respect for subsidiarity. It also concluded that a second European parliamentary chamber was not the right solution. If it had a substantial legislative role like a senate, as suggested by a number of commentators

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including Mr Daniel Cohn-Bendit, it would surely run into conflict with the European Parliament. The question of relative legitimacy would arise, depending on the method used to create the second chamber. In practical terms, it would also prove very difficult for members to serve their own Parliament and a full-time European second chamber. If, on the other hand, it were restricted to one or two areas, as has also been suggested—for example, oversight of common foreign and security policy or particular attention to subsidiarity—that might be practically possible but it would run the risk of being unsuccessful because of the speed of decision making on common foreign and security policy and because subsidiarity needs to be given attention throughout the preparation and progress of legislation. It is not a one-off. To quote a phrase that is used by the French, the proposal for the second chamber would be "a bad good idea".

Although I agree with the report, I want to develop certain points that bear on the problem rather than on the suggested second chamber solution. In any event, it is wise not to look for institutional changes before the convention has done its work and made such recommendations or choices as it wishes to put before the intergovernmental conference of 2004. For a better way forward that will satisfy our citizens more about European Union policies and legislation, we must look beyond general phrases such as "better governance" or "reducing the democratic deficit"; we need to analyse more closely who does what and how things may be done better.

First, we need to distinguish, as some noble Lords have, between those European Union proposals or actions that fall within intergovernmental areas of common foreign and security policy—pillar two—and justice and home affairs—pillar three—and those European Community proposals or actions that fall within the area of Community competence. Why is such a distinction important? It is important because, to a large degree, the specific actions under the common foreign and security policy, including any defence element, and the sensitive issues of justice and home affairs, in so far as they are intergovernmental, are not scrutinised in advance nor are they decided by the European Parliament. They are decided only by the Ministers of the member states in the Council of Ministers. As the Prime Minister said in a speech, he recognises that one of the tasks for a second chamber could be to provide,


    "democratic oversight at the European level of the common foreign and security policy".

It is right to ask ourselves whether we are satisfied that, on matters so sensitive to public opinion, the traditional scrutiny that we exercise over proposals in those areas and the capacity to call a national government to account in a national parliament are sufficient. I believe that they could be, but on two conditions.

First, the traditional scrutiny by national parliaments, including this House, should be particularly attentive to those areas that are not subject to decision by the European Parliament and

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such scrutiny should be timely. I am unsure whether the fact that much European Union business is now under pillars two and three has been fully comprehended, particularly those issues affecting immigration, asylum, judicial co-operation and the fight against crime and drugs. A recent document put to the Select Committee on the European Union showed that, in a sift of the important issues, at least half fell into those areas. A few years ago, that was never the case. In this Chamber we know how thoroughly and how quickly we had to look at the matter of the European arrest warrant. Such important issues appear quickly and they need to be dealt with speedily.

The second condition is that the legislative actions of the Council of Ministers should be more transparent. That point has been made by a number of noble Lords and I support it strongly. I recognise that many issues need to be discussed by Ministers in private and in confidence. However, I refuse to be typecast as a former bureaucrat and Eurocrat. When legislating, particularly on issues such as justice and the movement of people, I believe that the Council could be open to the public.

I turn to the democratic oversight of Community affairs. In this connection I do not believe that the phrase "democratic deficit" is apt. In recent decades, the legislative role of the European Parliament has been increased substantially with the consequence that not only does the European Parliament, jointly with the Council, control finance, but most primary legislation—certainly over 80 per cent—is subject to co-decision by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. In most cases the European Parliament can amend, improve, send back or block Community primary legislation that is presented to it.

What are the problems, if any? In my view there are three. First, at the European level, the Council of Ministers—the other half of the legislative authority—is not open to scrutiny in the same way, although individual member states can be questioned and to some degree controlled by their national parliaments.

Secondly, an important point to me is that the national parliaments can, of course, scrutinise European Commission proposals and give their views or guidance to their own governments. In this House that is the role of the Select Committee on the European Union, which carries out a fine job, but the national parliaments give little input to the European Community legislative process before formal proposals come forward. That is why I attach importance to what may be seen as rather a technical point—point 12 in the summary of the report—that there should be co-operation between national parliaments in examining the Commission's work programme.

I would like to see the European Commission required to consult all the national parliaments on its draft work programme, which would give us a chance to indicate the proposals that, from our national standpoint, we would like to see included, and those proposals to which we had some objections, whether

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on the ground of subsidiarity or any other ground. Significant requests and disagreements by a national parliament, if not accepted by the Commission, should be annexed to the final programme submitted to the European Parliament and Council. Thus, there would be a national parliamentary input, even before formal proposals were submitted.

I believe that that would make quite a difference to the role that we could play in influencing legislation. Almost all the Commission's proposals respond to needs or requests from the European Parliament, from the Council, from individual member states or from the many business, commercial or consumer interests with which the Commission is always in close contact. If we do not agree, it is important to establish a counterweight early in the process.

Thirdly, I stress that public dissatisfaction with the operation of subsidiarity often relates not to primary, but to secondary legislation—the "nooks and crannies", as referred to by a former Foreign Secretary. We need to pay great attention to ensuring that the European Community's primary legislation does not give too much latitude for such secondary legislation. At the moment we do not pay it much attention. Like the Select Committee, I look at this stage for practical rather than institutional solutions to these problems.

4.18 p.m.

Lord Desai: My Lords, I am the first noble Lord to speak in this debate who is not a member of the Select Committee, nor have I been a democratically elected Member of the European Parliament. Another difference is that I do not like this report at all. I am deeply disappointed in it. Although I believe that many competent people have spent time writing the report, I do not believe that they have considered this problem with sufficient imagination. They have looked for objections in every nook and cranny. My noble friend Lord Grenfell said that they had cut the long grass. In my view they have put agent orange on the grass and destroyed it. Nothing will ever grow there again.

On Europe I am a disappointed enthusiast. Once German reunification took place, the entire momentum in European Union affairs was lost. There has been a great deal of erosion and avoidance of crucial issues. IGC after IGC has failed to advance any positions or to tackle any problems. The Community is swimming along in inertia. Although many things have happened, they have happened due more to inertia than to anything else. I believe that my noble friend Lord Tomlinson described very well what was wrong, but his proposal was, "It's broke, but don't fix it". That seems to be summary a of what he said.

Perhaps I may take up one issue before I reach the major criticism of the report. I refer to scrutiny. I was briefly on Sub-Committee A of your Lordships' committee on European affairs. I very much enjoyed the process. But good as our committee is, it does not have sufficient time for scrutiny because information arrives too late and we are in a great hurry to send

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things back. We are really interested in the big reports which take us to Brussels or Frankfurt, which is very nice. I enjoy it myself.

Since I am on my feet I propose that we should have a separate sub-committee which carries out scrutiny and nothing else, leaving the major subjects to the other sub-committees, which can grandstand around. Some really tough people should look at scrutiny across all legislation, and the sub-committee should do only that. That is the only way in which scrutiny will be carried out, otherwise it is dealt with at the end of the interesting business in sub-committees in which I have often taken part. I do not believe that that is the way to do it. We should not congratulate ourselves that we have scrutiny: we do not have enough of it by any means.

I turn to the report itself.


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