EU Action: Parliamentary Scrutiny

(asked on 24th July 2018) - 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 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.


Answered by
Lord Callanan Portrait
Lord Callanan
Shadow Minister (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
This question was answered on 22nd August 2018

Between January and June 2018, 572 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 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

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

2

2

2

2

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

32

31

30

33

Totals

34

33

32

35

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