European Committee, 04 Mar 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 4, 2003

Official Report 203KB pdf

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Sift

Item 6 is the sift of EC and EU documents. It is worth emphasising that the new procedure for handling the sift of documents and material coming out of the EU is taking shape and has been welcomed by a number of other committees.

The clerk tells me that the Social Justice Committee has written to welcome the fact that we recently referred the UK social inclusion plan to it. It is going to consider the plan after the election. I understand that four other committees—the Rural Development Committee, the Justice 2 Committee, the Health and Community Care Committee and probably the Local Government Committee—are setting up their own systems to track developments in EU institutions, based on advice that our committee clerks have provided.

The relevant ministers are writing to those committees regularly to inform them of the latest legislative developments in the EU so that members can be informed and decide whether to act on that information. Therefore, the approach that we have mapped out seems to be working. It is certainly a hell of a lot better than my experience of the way such matters were dealt with at Westminster.

I welcome that development because, in the past few months, it has been difficult to know whether committees were tracking documents that had been passed on to them. The sift documents are confusing to read because there are so many directives and proposals at different stages. However, it is good if the committees are beginning to prioritise what is happening at a European level, and it should also mean more effective accountability of ministers.

It is important to focus on such matters because this committee gets an awful lot of paper. If we cascade that information through all the other committees, we might simply generate more and more paper without generating much more light on issues. It is important that we are all selective and look for the issues that are most relevant.

Do members accept the recommendations in the papers?

Members indicated agreement.

Meeting continued in private until 15:32.