 Oni'n bwysig, felly awydd я'n ei wnaeth yn merchfodol â'i bydd Bill Cash yno. Mi'n gweithio gefn eu lectorol a ddim wastu'r cwestiynau ac mae'r cwestiynau ysgwrth o'r sesifydd, byddwn i'n fwy o bwysig yw'n cynnig rwy'n cael ei dweud wych o bobl hafysgau. Y lectorol bydd yn crofynu'r byd byd i BBC parlymu, ac yn ymdweud fy mod i'n tro i'r bobl ac mae'n gael gweithio bwymy weighedithau ar BBC parlymond yn y ffordd ar gyfer y gyfer gweith. a'r perloedd y parlynedd yw'r cyffredinol yn ymgyrchol. Felly, mae'r bwysig sy'n ddiddordeb yn ymgyrch ar gyfer ymgyrch i'r gwaith, yn ymgyrch i'r cyffredinol. Felly, rwy'n meddwl, ddweud am ymgyrch yn ymgyrch, ac wedi'u gweld yw ddweud, rwy'n meddwl i'r cyffredinol i'r cyffredinol. Ddweud am ymgyrch, mae'n ddweud. Mae'n ddweud i'r cyffredinol i'r cyffredinol, Mae'n gweithio i ddyn nhw'n iawn i'w wneud y byddwch gweithio i'r Uniglyziad Ynysgwylliant ac i ddweud y byddai'r cymdeithasol yng Nghymru o'r ddegonion yng Nghymru yma, sy'n ei wneud o'r llunau o'r llyfr o'r ddweud yng Nghymru, ac i ddweud o'r ddweud o'r cyflawn y system informatiynau, sy'n ei ddweud ymlaen i ei gael, ac i ddweud o'r ddweud i'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud, Maen nhw yw'n gweld os y lempau yn y cyflym eich ddweud oherwydd ar fluogol, ond Y Deyrwyr wedi bod yn y ddimensionol. Rhywbeth sy'n fydd yn ddigonio gyda'r Uni Arddangol. A herwydd, y lleff interestsau ei adegwylios er mwyn ac y fwrdd bod yn ddigonio'r cyffrasau o'r rhai gennymogau mewn gwirionedd wedi'i gwirionedd, a'r cyflym hwn nesaf sy'n ei ddigonio'r cyflym i'w rhywbeth. Roedd yna beth Ac rwy'n gweithio eu chredig ar maen nhw, I think he's probably slightly out of date now, which was given a few years ago with respect to the estimate of the impact of the European legislation on the United Kingdom. And the answer that was given by the then government was, this was in 2006, many EU regulations have a purely technical or temporary effect, but we estimate that around 50% of UK legislation with a significant economic impact has its origins in EU legislation. I think I would probably think it was somewhat more than that, but it does give some indication of the impact that it has in the minds of those in government who have been looking at it. Now, I'll just start by saying to you that I've been on the European Scrutiny Committee now for 28 years. That's quite a long time. And I was elected as the chairman of that committee two years ago. And one of the things that I was extremely concerned about over that 28 years was the impact that it was having on the daily lives of the United Kingdom electorate, but also the extent to which the information about it was being disseminated and the method whereby we in the European Scrutiny Committee examine that legislation, which I shall be going into in a minute, and also the extent to which people are aware of the Scrutiny process. So what I've done most recently is to set up through my committee a European Scrutiny Inquiry into European Scrutiny because it seemed to me that it was very important that we examine not only what we were doing but also to provide an opportunity for other people to form an assessment and also to give evidence to the committee. And we've been holding a series of sessions from various people. We've had the various politicians who have been involved. We're making comparisons with other European Scrutiny systems. And we've most recently had the BBC in to look at the question of the manner in which they provide the information to the public at large under their royal charter. In the same context I would say that we perhaps ought to just look at how European legislation comes about in terms of its process through the United Kingdom Parliament as a whole. Just for those of you who are not entirely familiar with it, just mention this because it's absolutely crucial to an understanding of the whole process. The reason that European legislation has the effect that it does on the United Kingdom is by virtue of the European Community Act 1972. And under that act, which is a very short act, and I would strongly recommend you to have a look at it if you have an opportunity to do so. It's only a few pages long, but it's very comprehensive. And what it says in a nutshell is that all legislation, which emanates from the European Union institutional processes, mainly through the Council of Ministers or regulations that are made by the European Commission, automatically, once it has been voted on in the Council of Ministers or has been made as a regulation, automatically has effect of law in the United Kingdom. So the whole range of European legislation automatically has that effect. In 1971 there was a white paper which preceded the passing of that act in 1972. And it was clearly stated in that act, in that white paper, that when the act went through that the effect of it would be qualified by the continuation of the veto. And what it said in the white paper was that it was in our vital national interest that the veto should be retained and that to do otherwise would not only have a significant impact on our own national interest, but would also endanger the very fabric of the European community itself. So there was a recognition in 1971 on which the 1972 act was passed of the importance of being able to say no in our own parliament. Now, time has moved on. Various treaties have been made since then and the net result is that more and more majority voting has been brought in which has overridden the original description that was given in the white paper of 1971. But of course this does have very powerful impact in relation to our democracy and also in relation to the whole question of the impact that it has on businesses and on people's daily lives. Indeed there are many many bills which are based on European legislation and I think it would be fair to say that the sort of processes which I shall describe in a minute are capable of being construed as being somewhat in need of improvement. My own view is, and my committee will consider all this when it comes to its conclusions in relation to the European Scrutiny process, that improvements can and should be made. The European Scrutiny inquiry which has been set up deals with the following sort of questions which is the mechanism by which the committee refers documents to European committees. Now what I'd like to deal with at this point is to describe exactly what happens when European legislation comes through our system. In the first place the documents are considered in working groups within the European legislative system as a whole which includes of course civil servants from the various member states who are looking at it all and then eventually it makes its way through the council of ministers to the point where the voting actually takes place. Now our system is document based and under our standing orders it is stated that any proposal under the community treaties for legislation by the council or the council acting jointly with the European Parliament has to come to our committee and this includes drafts of regulations which are directly applicable to member states which are binding as to the result to be achieved. Furthermore the system also catches later legislation for example any amendments that are made and it is said that any document which is published for submission to the European council, the council or the European central bank has to come to us. Furthermore it also includes any proposal for a common strategy, a joint action or what's known as a common position under the treaties that's title five which is prepared for submission to the council or to the European council. The net result of this is that there are about a thousand documents a year which fall within these various categories and each has to be formally deposited in Parliament within two working days of its arrival in the foreign Commonwealth office and a deposit means that it's available in the House of Commons vote office and is submitted to the European scrutiny committee. So we actually examine all 1000 of those documents. It's also important to note that most proposals are examined not on the basis of a single document but at several different points as it continues to go through and scrutiny begins at a relatively early stage because these documents include commission consultation papers and green and white papers which come from the commission. The commission's own legislation on its own authority is dealt with by regulations. Now in addition to that there is also included in the documents that come to us an explanatory memorandum which has to be provided by the government. Now it is sometimes said that a lot of this legislation is very complex. Well so is all legislation actually and the real point is that I don't think if I may say so that sufficient attention has been given to the fact that the impact on the lives of the people in this country as it passes through the legislation passes through the process has been given the degree of attention that it really deserves. Now when the government is required to submit an explanatory memorandum which is in relation to every document a great deal of the complexity is effectively taken out of it because it's put into much simpler language as the explanatory memorandum is put before the committee. And there are rules relating to these explanatory memorandum and they go like this. The memorandum must cover a description of the subject together with the scrutiny history that's how it came about where the ministerial responsibility lies the basis the legal basis on which it's being made because as you'll gather from what I said earlier you can't just invent European legislation it has to come from what's called the legal base which means the authority from the European Treaty. That's what enables that legislation to be made through the European system. Then the explanatory memorandum also has to describe the procedure which will be followed and whether or not for example it will be by qualified majority voting or whether it would be unanimous. In other words can the government just simply say no we're not going to do that which is the unanimity rule where that applies but of course as I've said earlier so much is now done by qualified majority vote that more and more of it goes through by decisions that have been taken by the member states sitting in the council of ministers as a whole. Alternatively if they decide that they don't want to have a vote and that often is the case they then do it by way of consensus. Then the explanatory memorandum also has to describe the impact on United Kingdom law. It also has to describe whether or not the so-called principle of subsidiarity. This is the sort of jargon which we do find occasionally. I have to say subsidiarity effectively means should this matter have been dealt with better at a domestic national level or should it have been dealt with at the European level. That's a simple way of describing subsidiarity but that has to be described in this explanatory memorandum as well. Furthermore the government also has to set out what its view is of the documents policy and what its implications are. Then also a regulatory impact assessment. I mean for example will it have an impact on burdens on business. One of the things I would just mention here is because although we talk in general terms about impact on daily lives the full range and extent of the European legislation is really absolutely huge. The impact on the economy of the country and on the businesses and the question of whether or not there is or is not over regulation is all part of that. It is a fact that unfortunately I don't believe that there is sufficient attention given to the moments when this is going through the European exclusionary process as far as business is concerned. I do think that it is incredibly important for business to become much more engaged in the process because although there is a great deal of other legislation which is going through the House of Commons the economic impact on the businesses of this country is very considerable and therefore I believe it's very important that they should take an even greater interest than they do already and I'd say at the moment it is not as good as it should be in relation to what is going on in the European Scrutiny Committee itself. Furthermore there has to be under the expansion memorandum a risk assessment and where necessary a scientific justification and what consultation has taken place in the UK or in the EU as a whole. Then of course also this expansion memorandum you'll notice covers an enormous amount of material in relation to every single one of those thousand documents and it goes on that they also require to explain the financial implications for the EU and the UK and of course also the likely timetable. So for practical purposes the expansion memorandum is a very important document and as it goes through the process clearly it would be a great importance for people in my judgement to be looking at it as it makes its way bearing in mind also that the original proposal can in fact be changed as it goes through the process and as the matter is considered by the European Scrutiny Committee we make our recommendations and to give you an example in relation to the recent unified patent law which is being set up. There was an enormous exchange, there was a tremendous amount of interaction with patent specialists which has huge implications for matters relating to intellectual property and the whole of the patenting system which is so important to research and to development. And as the process went through the arguments that were presented to us were then relayed back to the government and also to government ministers, we had a government minister in to speak to us and we examined the minister in question and we then put forward other proposals as a result of our consideration of all this and I can say with certainty that it had an enormous impact on the way in which the unified patent itself was ultimately put into legislation. Now there are other roles because we also hold inquiries so we have this document based system which we are going through the whole time which itself can lead to amendments and an interaction with government but at the same time we also hold inquiries on major issues and one of the first things I did when I became chairman was to propose that we had a full inquiry into the interaction between the European Union and the sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament for reasons that would be obvious to you because as I said if you got this huge impact of what is going on and people are elected at general elections to be members of parliament and the legislation goes through Westminster it doesn't take much imagination to suppose that it's extremely important that when the European scrutiny process is taking place and indeed when the whole question of the democratic basis on which people are elected to parliament is considered in this context that it's very important for us to work out what the impact of this European legislation through our voluntary enactment of the European Communities Act 972 actually is on the people of this country. So that committee looked into the whole question of the EU and sovereignty. We also subsequently in 2011 passed an act called the European Union Act of 2011 and that dealt with the whole question of the referendum in relation to the transfer of future powers. Now I won't go into all the details but you can understand how important that was so we took evidence on that as well and we've also as I've said recently set up this other committee to inquire into scrutiny too. Now in addition to those inquiries which are where we have evidence in public examining ministers as we did for example on the Lisbon Treaty in the previous government we go into all the ins and outs of the implications of the treaty this is proposed to be going through or we will have a report on a specific subject like sovereignty or in this other case with regard to referendums. But when we have considered the documents in question which is the documents which crop up and I'll give you a few examples in a minute in which have come through the Council of Ministers or are passing through that Council of Ministers there is also a requirement under our standing orders for us to consider whether or not a particular document that's the thousand documents I referred to is or is not of legal and political importance. If we come to the conclusion having looked at them that we think that it is of legal and all political importance we will then recommend them for debate in the House of Commons that is what is laid down under our standing orders. Now what then happens is that the documents are either debated in a European Standing Committee with there are three standing committees and they deal with different subject matters more or less in line with departmental select committee functions. So we will then decide whether or not a particular document should be debated and when it goes to the European Standing Committee that is one route the other is on the floor of the house. Now obviously we can't have everything debated on the floor of the house so we're much more selective about urging the government to put a particular document on the floor of the house as compared to the European Standing Committee. But to give you some examples of the cases where matters have been referred to the floor of the house I'll just give you a few recently one is the freezing and confiscation of proceeds of crime in the European Union. Another is inside a dealing a market manipulation. Another one is the draft budget. Another one is the charter of fundamental rights. Another is the question of supervision of credit institutions and so on. So where we regard something of being of that kind of significance we will then refer it to the floor of the house. The government can decide not to do so but these days are very reluctant to disagree with our recommendations if we suggest that it should go to the floor of the house. Now in addition to that as I said the documents will also go to European Standing Committees. Now these are committees composed of members of parliament on both sides of the house and bear in mind our committee is also all party. It's not a Conservative committee. It's made up of other parties as well. So the European Standing Committees as they're called is where documents which don't warrant perhaps the same degree of debate on the floor of the house as the other ones I've mentioned. But those will include for example recently risks and safety assessments of nuclear power plants in the European Union arguments relating to the whole question of fight against fraud. Another one EU criminal justice legislation in the field of detention. Another one was a commission white paper which is to do with adequate safe and sustainable pensions. And then another one credit agreements relating to residential properties and another financial support for the police cooperation preventing and combating crime and crisis management and so on. The list is very extensive as you can imagine from a thousand documents. We can't send them all to the floor of the house. But the question is what happens when it gets to the Standing Committee. Now we took evidence from another member of parliament the other day, Jesus Stuart, and she was a minister and has taken a very active interest in European matters. She was the government's representative at the proposals for the European Constitution some years ago. And she gave some very interesting evidence indeed because she said that the procedure that is followed when a minister has to appear before a European Standing Committee can be very daunting. In fact, she used an even stronger word than that. And the reason for that is this, that the documents themselves cover the subject matter I've described. But when a minister has to appear before such a standing committee, which is all party, the cross examination takes about an hour on every aspect of that. And then it is followed by a debate on that document as well. So you can imagine why it is that ministers regard this process as pretty daunting. And the idea that somehow it's incomprehensible I think is really just simply not correct. The examination of the language that is used in some of these documents does leave something to be desired. I personally think that it would be a lot easier if it was more user friendly. But actually when you're dealing with the policy questions which arise, and I'll give you an example, we all know at the moment what's going on in Mali. Now I think it would be fair to say that there weren't that many people who predicted what would happen in Mali. But the proposal came before our committee and we decided it was extremely important it should be debated. So that as it were pretty well ahead of the curve, we were examining through the European Standing Committee with an hours examination by the committee of the minister, followed by debate, the implications of what was going on in relation to this proposal for sending troops to Mali. That is just one example of the kind of thing that is done in those European Standing Committees. Now in addition to that, there is also the whole question of the extent to which this is put out into the public arena. And we had the BBC in the other day and we've asked them a lot of questions in relation to their royal charter. And of course it does also apply to the other media or television and broadcasting media. And we should be having ITV along and Sky to ask them questions as well about all this. And I think it would be fair to say that the transcript is now on the website. It's not finalised yet and therefore it isn't the formal transcript. But it is out there for anyone who wants to look at it. That the extent to which the information has been made available to the public at large could be improved. Let's put it that way around. And indeed I've got here the transcript as it stands at the moment. And the question arose as to how often the BBC has reported on 90 European Scrutiny Committee reports recently. And the gentleman in question Peter Knowles said the simple answer in numbers is we have shown in the last two years four of the hearings of this committee. Now I think that all this is an ongoing process and we're all on a learning curve. But we are hoping that consideration of all this will ultimately lead to a greater degree of interest taken and more time given to the process of Scrutiny and not only to the process but more particularly to the content. Because if these European Standing Committees and indeed on the floor of the house matters of such importance are being discussed all the time right the way through the parliamentary year then one might hope that more attention could be given. I know there are other competing issues and I know there are questions about whether or not there is a proportionality that can be given to one subject as compared to another. But I think that you will get the impression from what I'm saying at least I trust you will that there is a huge amount of this European legislation which does have a direct impact on the United Kingdom which really does deserve to be out there so that people who are watching the BBC or watching ITV or Sky or reading the newspapers are aware of the impact that this European legislation is having on their own lives and on their businesses. So what else is there that I could refer to? In particular we have select committees of the House of Commons in addition to ours. We are one of the select committees. Every department has its own select committee. There are three Scrutiny committees. One is the Public Accounts Committee which you will know about which looks at the whole question of public expenditure. Then there is the European Scrutiny committee that looks at all the European matters and then there is also a Statue of Insurance committee. But there are other select committees and one of the things that we are looking at in our enquiry is this. Because the select committees don't look at legislation specifically they look at policy areas and they cross-examined ministers on the whole raft of policies right the way across everything you can think of that applies to policy making in government and its impact on the electorate. Health, education, transport, foreign affairs, the list is endless. But for the reasons that I should think you've probably seen by now there is this continuing European dimension in relation to all those areas as well. So one of the things we are considering is having what we call a rapporteur. In other words a specialist in relation to the European dimension on each of those select committees so that whenever a select committee is examining a policy area let's say it's HHS2 for example you know the high speed rail that's going up from London to Birmingham and from Birmingham to Manchester and onwards. That because there are European dimensions to this that it would be important for the select committee on transport to be perhaps having somebody who is a specialist on the European dimension of this examining it with the other members of the committee and those select committees themselves I repeat are all party. So you get therefore if we do recommend this the interaction between the domestic implications for those who are affected by the high speed rail which includes questions of blight compensation and all the rest of it but also to take account of the European dimension at the same time. And we believe or we're beginning to look at I can't say we've come to any conclusion yet that it would be probably a good idea to have a rapporteur on each of those select committees so you can get a better interaction between the domestic and the European dimension. I could also mention that the liaison committee which is the chairman of all the select committees sitting in one committee called the liaison committee have themselves also been looking at this and indeed so have some of the devolved assemblers. So that would be one way of getting greater interaction between the European dimension and the domestic. Then there is also as far as the information we receive is concerned in the European scrutiny committee also a body called the National Parliament Parliament Office the NPO. Now these are the eyes and ears of the European scrutiny committee and indeed for that matter other committees. In relation to European matters in let's call it Brussels in the European institutions and we receive a report every week from our staff who are in the European institutions as to what they see going on over there as well. So that increases our awareness of things that otherwise might seem to be out there in Europe because out there in Europe is not out there in Europe at all. We are Europe. We are within the European institutions ourselves and leave aside the arguments of whether or not under the proposals for a referendum we would be in or out or not. We're looking at the position as we see it now in respect of the law that applies to the United Kingdom and that's why it's important for us to have information from the National Parliamentary Office. Now in addition to that there is also an organisation called UCCREP that is United Kingdom representatives who are the government's representatives in let's call it Brussels the European institutions whose job it is is to assimilate examine debate negotiate with their counterparts in the other 27 member states. They are working across the board with the civil servants in their own country in the United Kingdom but they're also negotiating with the other member states representatives in Brussels as well. So there is this interaction which is going on the whole time between the civil servants, the representatives in Brussels who are appointed to do a lot of the negotiations. There are the ministers themselves who are of course responsible and accountable to our own parliament for what they're doing in relation to the European legislation. And then on top of that there is our committee which is looking at all these factors and looking at the impact that it has on the United Kingdom. In addition to that and by the way we are considering our scrutiny process as looking at the UCCREP process as well. So we will be examining not only the various people that we've seen already but also the people from UCCREP as well. Then of course there is this question of the European Court of Justice because under this European Communities Act which I described at the beginning of my talk. Under section 3 of that act we're under an obligation not only to implement the legislation which comes from section 2 but under section 3 to obey all the court judgments that come from the European Court of Justice as well. And indeed in addition to that this is an obligation on the United Kingdom courts to apply the law of the European Union in their own judgments where European legislation and European law is applicable. So you can see the impact of a whole of this European dimension on the United Kingdom and therefore on every aspect of our lives which is why I believe it is so important that we have a proper examination of the scrutiny process. One of those from the BBC who came to see us said he described this as a very challenging exercise. In fact I think I go so far as to say he thought it was quite impressive that we were examining our own role because it is very important that we really examine the nature and the extent, not only of the effect on the lives of the people of this country which is impinged upon or affected by the European Union and its legislative processes but also the whole question of the procedures and the processes themselves. So it's the impact as well as the process. Now I think myself that there is one other thing I will mention and that is with respect to the question of what is called the European Scrutiny Reserve which is another way of describing the extent to which our committee is able to put a break on legislation as it is going, European legislation as it is going through the system. In a nutshell what this really means is that where we have recommended that a particular document is of legal or political importance, once we have decided that it then goes on the order paper and it can then be seen in the vote office, all the information I've described to you by the way can also be seen in any of the documents in the vote office or on our European Scrutiny website. They say sometimes that the best way to keep a secret is to make a speech in the House of Commons but actually there is no secret about any of this. It is a transparent system but I'm afraid that it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that insufficient people have the sort of information that they could have if they were able to avail themselves of the system that is made available to them. In other words there are documents which are in the vote office and in parliamentary papers and in reports, they are all produced but the question is have people actually got knowledge of them? That is the question because it's one thing for us in the Westminster village as it could be described to be examining all these questions and doing it diligently and making recommendations and all the interactions I've described between all the different forces at work in pursuit of the democratic process. But if people don't know that that is going on then it becomes paper rather than information. So I'm strongly of the opinion that it is very important that we improve the quality of the dissemination, the broadcasting, the knowledge of this material which does have such an impact on the people of this country. Now just to come back to the Scrutiny Reserve, when we have decided that a matter is of legal or political importance that is a strong and in fact a requirement, it is a strong message plus a requirement on the government not to make a decision in the Council of Ministers until that debate has taken place. Now we don't have the power to veto what we do have the power to do is to require debate and to say to the minister until this matter has been decided by debate in the House of Commons you are not allowed except in exceptional circumstances and there are some which are a very urgent nature sometimes. You are not allowed to allow that legislation to be implemented into United Kingdom law. It's a bit more complicated than that but I don't think I need to go into all the detail. The minister can give an agreement if he considers that the proposal is confidential or routine and there are one or two qualifications to that but for practical purposes the European Scrutiny Reserve acts as a break until the debate has taken place. That's the position of the nutshell. I think at this juncture I probably covered as much as could reasonably be covered in the time we've got and I'm very happy to answer questions if anyone would like to do so. I think I've covered all the main subject matter. I'm not advocating at this juncture a particular course that's up to my committee to decide what they decide to do when we've heard all the evidence. We're going through the evidence and I think it will be an important report because it's about something which is of direct concern to everybody in this country and because the Prime Minister has now in this Bloomberg speech raised the whole question of the referendum issue, then I think a lot of people are thinking quite heavily and will continue to do so about the impact that the legislation has and the manner in which they want it to be dealt with and anyone who wishes to give evidence to our committee is more than welcome to do so and in writing and sometimes orally and we should be continuing the process for several months to come. So thank you all very much for coming and I hope that I've thrown some light on the European Scrutiny process. It's important to the people of this country and to our democracy and also as to the manner in which it is dealt with and the implications of that for everybody affected by it. Thank you all very much.