European Scrutiny Committee

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

It is important to have a debate on this motion. We have heard all afternoon splendid speeches and maiden speeches, have we not? But the thrust of this afternoon has been scrutiny, accountability and responsibility. It seems extraordinary to me that while the other House has a Committee to scrutinise our relations with the European Union—indeed, today it has proudly announced that it has been reformed—and the Government want to reform the House of Lords, we could have a situation in which there is only a Committee to scrutinise relations with the European Union in the other place. We have talked about scrutiny all afternoon. Of the 27 Committees referred to on the Order Paper, the European Scrutiny Committee is the only one that includes the word “scrutiny”, yet it is the one Committee that the Leader of the House wants to do away with. I find that extraordinary.

We have heard from the Government before the election, during the election and since the election about the importance of our relations with our friends in the European Union and how negotiations may take place on a whole raft of important issues. Do hon. Members remember the slogan, “Take back control of our borders, our money and our laws”? Surely the whole point of our debate about our relationship with the European Union is that this is the place where we debate and legislate for laws on behalf of the people, so if we are to take back control of our laws, surely those laws and the negotiations proposed by the Government on behalf of the people should be scrutinised in detail and earnest, as has been proposed all afternoon with regard to other matters.

I suggest to the Leader of the House, the Government and the Whips that we need to reflect on that. I urge the Leader of the House to withdraw the motion, reflect on it from the sedentary position of our sunbeds over the next month and bring it back to the House in September.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Those of us who will be not on a sunbed but in our constituencies do recognise that point. The hon. Gentleman and I will take a different view on the benefits of what the Government are doing to reset our relationship with Europe now that we have left the European Union so that we can finally get the trading benefits sorted and sort out the border tax mess left by the last Government. Does he recognise that there is now a lacuna where people may question where such a debate will happen and what role parliamentarians may play in it, and that perhaps one fruitful thing would be to clarify what will happen to the European Statutory Instruments Committee, which seems to have been dissolved yet was looking at the European laws that we were transposing into UK law?

There are a number of questions that may not be for this evening but are for the future of this Parliament. Given what the hon. Gentleman is expressing, he and I might disagree on the outcomes, but we agree that they are important questions, and we would like to understand what will happen next.