Letter: Westminster impotent to curb Europe
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: The House of Commons Select Committee on European Legislation suffers from bad self-delusion. It is not its job to scrutinise draft EU legislation. That belongs to the European Parliament, which under the Treaty is the legislative partner of the Council and the Commission and has established formal procedural arrangements to make the partnership work. At the current IGC the European Parliament's law-making role needs to be reinforced, particularly with regard to secondary legislation: the UK government is alone in opposing this.
What should the European committee be doing? It should be co-operating better with the European Parliament's committees in monitoring the implementation of EU law and policy in this country; it should be assisting MEPs, especially in EU budgetary control; it should be questioning the broad lines of government policy and insisting on the publication of White Papers on pressing strategic issues, such as EMU; it should be assessing the causes and effects of government setbacks in the Council; it should go fact-finding in Brussels and act as a conduit of information between the EU institutions and Westminster; it should be collaborating far more closely with comparable bodies of MPs in other member states, especially to open up tricky dossiers, such as fisheries policy.
Bleat as the European Select Committee might about its treatment at the hands of the Government, the fact is that most MPs are deeply ill-informed about the European Union and more or less uninterested in the European dimension to domestic politics. When from time to time the House of Commons comes to exercise its reserve constitutional powers on major developments in the European Union such as enlargement, Treaty change or EMU, is it really a surprise that it makes such a poor showing?
ANDREW DUFF
Director,
The Federal Trust
London SW
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments