Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement Scrutiny

Lord Soley Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

We are of course fully committed to facilitating the work of the committees. The Secretary of State has made 10 parliamentary appearances in the nine sitting weeks since his appointment. Deputy Ministers have given evidence on over 40 occasions to a range of committees, and I know that the Secretary of State has appeared once in front of the noble Lord’s committee and has committed to appearing again when we have a deal and something to report back on.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, has just said, there is acute anger in this House and in the other House about members of Select Committees—I am a member of two of them—getting less information than Members of the European Parliament are getting from Mr Barnier. Why is it that, when we are supposed to be taking back control, there is this affront to the British Parliament, where we get less information than Members of the European Parliament?

[Lord Callanan]

I understand the noble Lord’s point, but I am not sure that he is correct. We published extensive details on the withdrawal agreement in March. The chapters on citizens’ rights and on the financial settlement have been published, and the details of the implementation period have been published—so I do not think that the European Parliament has access to any more information than this Parliament does. But obviously nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and the danger of publishing some aspects, particularly with regard to the implementation period, is that they are already being re-discussed in the negotiations. But we will share as much information as possible, and extensive amounts have already been published. We have appeared in front of numerous committees and we will do so again once we have a final agreement.