EU Action: Parliamentary Scrutiny
(asked on 19th July 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :
To ask Her Majesty's Government for each Government department, from January to June, 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.
Answered by
Lord Callanan
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Between January and June 2019, 414 Explanatory Memoranda on EU proposals and other documents were submitted for scrutiny.
During this period there were 37 occasions when the Government supported decisions in the EU Council of Ministers before parliamentary scrutiny procedures had been completed. In compiling these statistics a further 4 overrides were identified which were not included in the previous written answer for the period July-December 2018 (HL13200). They are included in this latest table.
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 32 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 |
Cabinet Office | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Foreign and Commonwealth Office* | 31 | 33 | 31 | 33 |
HM Revenue & Customs | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
International Trade | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Transport | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
HM Treasury | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Home Office** | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Totals | 37 | 41 | 37 | 41 |
*3 overrides occurred between July-December 2018
**Override occurred between July-December 2018