Lucy Powell

Lucy Powell

Labour (Co-op) — Manchester Central

Speaking in the House of Commons on 11 February 2025

Debate

Scrutiny of European Statutory Instruments

Contribution

I thank the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) for that contribution, which I am sure the House has heard. May I first explain to hon. Members that the motion on the Order Paper is not anything to do with European Scrutiny Committee? We dealt with that previously. The motion is about the European Statutory Instruments Committee, a specific Committee whose role was to consider whether certain proposed negative instruments in relation to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU should instead follow the affirmative procedure. In the Committee’s absence, all measures have proceeded through the affirmative procedure instead. The hon. and learned Gentleman asked about the numbers, which, in fact, are quite low. I think that previously the Committee looked at about 50 instruments per parliamentary Session, but by the year of the final Session of the last Parliament it was down to just 11, and it has been lower since then as well. We are talking about a tiny number of instruments being considered for the affirmative procedure.

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