European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am grateful to the noble Lord. As the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, mentioned, the noble Baroness the Lord President appeared before the Select Committee to give evidence on this just a week ago today. I note that this was after the exchange of letters between herself and myself from which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, has just extensively quoted. The Lord President was very helpful to the committee. We made the point very strongly that we regard proper parliamentary scrutiny of opt-ins as crucial and the Lord President clearly took the point. We will be discussing with government departments, and maybe taking further evidence on, how this can best be done. There are some very important issues regarding timing, given the 90-day restriction that has been mentioned. We will need to begin our scrutiny as soon as possible after the proposal reaches Parliament direct from the European Commission. We need and expect a Government Explanatory Memorandum as soon as possible, giving the Government’s intentions on opting in and the reasons for that. However, we may not necessarily want to wait for their final views before beginning the scrutiny process. In those circumstances, the presentation to the Government of our committee’s own emerging conclusions might prove helpful to the Government in their deliberations. Our bottom line is that the normal scrutiny process must be pursued. If the Government were to opt in before the scrutiny process was complete, that would be viewed very seriously by the committee and I am sure on the Floor of the House as well. We need time to decide how the present scrutiny system can be adapted, if it needs to be, to take into account these new requirements. We should therefore not rush into this too hastily.