EU Action: Parliamentary Scrutiny
(asked on 29th January 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :
To ask Her Majesty's Government, for each government department, from July to December 2018, on how many occasions the Scrutiny Reserve Resolution was overridden in (1) the House of Lords, and (2) the House of Commons; and in respect of how many documents an override occurred in (a) both Houses, (b) the House of Lords, and (c) the House of Commons.
Between July and December 2018, 350 Explanatory Memoranda on EU proposals and other documents were submitted for scrutiny.
Across both Houses there were 35 occasions when the Government supported decisions in the EU Council of Ministers before the scrutiny procedures had been completed.
As with previous six-monthly periods, the largest category of instruments were fast-moving and sensitive Common Foreign and Security Policy/EU restrictive measures proposals where there were 27 such instruments adopted before scrutiny could be completed.
The figures requested are set out below:
Department | (1 & b). House of Lords override | (2 & c). House Commons override | (a).No. of overrides in both Houses at same time | Total no. of overrides |
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Cabinet Office | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Foreign and Commonwealth Office | 24 | 20 | 16 | 28 |
HM Treasury | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
Totals | 30 | 26 | 21 | 35 |