EUROPE IN THE LORDS

The House of Lords EU Committee has a responsibility to look at what is happening in the European Parliament.

The principal function of the EU Select Committee is to scrutinise EU legislative proposals and the Government’s response to them. The Committee conducts a regular scrutiny of EU proposals, conducts a Correspondence with Ministers to pursue significant issues relating to individual scrutiny items, and produces a substantial number of Reports each year on a wide variety of EU-related issues.

The Committee’s formal terms of reference are “To consider European Union documents and other matters relating to the European Union”. The full terms of reference and the Scrutiny Reserve, under which the Government will not usually agree proposals for the EU laws which the Committee is still considering, are available.

Structure of the EU Select Committee

The EU Committee consists of a single Select Committee and seven Sub-Committees which deal with specific EU policy areas. The Sub-Committees consider relevant items of scrutiny, conduct their own Correspondence with Ministers, and prepare Reports which must be endorsed by the Select Committee as a whole before publication.

The EU Select Committee itself does the following:

oversees the work of the Sub-Committees
approves draft Reports from Sub-Committees for publication
conducts inquiries into cross-cutting issues such as the Subsidiarity Mechanism contained in the Constitutional Treaty
hears evidence from every incoming EU Presidency and from the UK Minister for Europe after major European Councils.

The Committee is currently conducting inquiries into the following areas:

Financial regulation and supervision in response to the economic crisis – Click for more or to submit views
Recast of the first railway package – Click for more or to submit views
Less favoured areas – Click for more or to submit views
Money laundering and financing terrorism – Click for more or to submit views
EU China relations – please email for more.

Details of how to contribute to these inquiries can be found by clicking on the relevant link.

The Committee will soon publish reports on the following:

EU Russia relations (follow up report)
The Community civil protection scheme
Cross border healthcare
The House of Lords EU Committee scrutinises what is happening in the European Parliament.

Structure of the EU Select Committee

The EU Select Committee itself does the following:

oversees the work of the Sub-Committees
approves draft Reports from Sub-Committees for publication
conducts inquiries into cross-cutting issues such as the Subsidiarity Mechanism contained in the Constitutional Treaty
hears evidence from every incoming EU Presidency and from the UK Minister for Europe after major European Councils.

The Committee is currently conducting inquiries into the following areas:

Financial regulation and supervision in response to the economic crisis – Click for more or to submit views
Recast of the first railway package – Click for more or to submit views
Less favoured areas – Click for more or to submit views
Money laundering and financing terrorism – Click for more or to submit views
EU China relations – please email for more.