Examination of Witnesses

Part of Trade Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:01 pm on 23 January 2018.

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Dr Fowler:

For example, you might simply want to have an affirmative motion, a motion for resolution, rather than the negative power that is applicable at the moment. That might be one option that the Government need to bring a motion for affirmative resolution. That is one possibility. Even more important is the preceding stage, which is processes around the signature of the new agreements, particularly where they might have been changed significantly from the existing EU ones. Again, there are things that Parliament could do about transparency, possibly having an approval motion, or recreating some kind of scrutiny reserve, possibly through a Committee. There are all sorts of institutional options, but I think the House might want to look at a set of processes around signature that the House might want to look at.