Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what input members of the House of Lords will have into the proposed select committee on scrutiny of Defence Nuclear Enterprise expenditure and programmes.

The Government recognises the complementary way in which both Houses contribute to the scrutiny function of Parliament as a whole, and appreciates that, once established, the proposed committee may wish to consider specialist advice from outside the House of Commons on certain topics. The Government is proposing that the committee should have the ability to appoint specialist advisers. These appointments would be at the discretion of the committee, but could be selected from the House of Lords.