Chamber and committees

Inter-Parliamentary Forum

Background

The primary purposes of the Inter-Parliamentary Forum are to provide a mechanism for dialogue and cooperation between parliamentarians from the Parliaments and Assemblies in meeting common scrutiny challenges arising from the new constitutional arrangements following the UK’s departure from the EU and to co-operate in finding solutions to overcome them. This will involve developing an inter-parliamentary approach aimed at ensuring appropriate levels of respective Ministerial accountability and transparency in a range of areas which in many cases may require new scrutiny processes. The IPF provides a collective space to share information about, and does not supplant, each parliament’s scrutiny of its executive.

Priorities

Initial priorities for the forum will include oversight of –

• Inter-governmental relations including agreeing a joint annual report on addressing common scrutiny challenges;
• The operation of international agreements including the Trade and Co-operation Agreement, the Withdrawal Agreement and the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol;
• The UK internal market including the UK Internal Market Act and Common Frameworks;
• The impact of the new constitutional arrangements on the legislative process including the use of secondary powers and the legislative consent process.

The inter-parliamentary forum will aim to improve scrutiny in these areas through both a mutual exchange of information and best practice at a parliamentary level and in seeking a consistent approach to improving accountability at both a Ministerial and inter-governmental level.

Meetings

The Inter-Parliamentary Forum met in the House of Lords on Friday 25th February.

Read the Joint Statement of the Interparliamentary Forum - UK Parliament

The Inter-Parliamentary Forum met in Senedd (Welsh Parliament) on the Friday 28th October 

Read the Joint Statement of the Interparliamentary Forum - Welsh Parliament (the Senedd) (36.5KB, pdf) posted 28 October 2022