Written question asked by Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party) on Thursday, 15 December 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 19 December 2005. It was answered by Baroness Primarolo (Labour) on Thursday, 26 January 2006 on behalf of the Treasury.

EU Committees

Question: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many meetings of the EU (a) Customs Cooperation Subcommittee-EEC-Israel, (b) Customs Cooperation Subcommittee-EEC-Hong Kong, (c) EEC-Mexico Special Committee on Customs Cooperation and (d) Advisory Committee on the Communities' own resources have taken place during the UK presidency of the EU; who presided over each meeting; what other UK representatives were present; what provision was made for representation of the devolved governments; and if he will make a statement.

Answer: The information is as follows:(a) There have been no meetings of the Customs Cooperation Subcommittee-EEC-Israel during the UK presidency.(b) There was one meeting of the EC-Hong Kong Joint Customs Cooperation Committee during the UK presidency on 18 November, Co-chaired by European Commission and Hong Kong Customs. Officials from Foreign and Commonwealth Office and HMRC represented the UK presidency. No provision was made for representation of the devolved governments.(c) The EEC-Mexico Special Committee on Customs Cooperation met once during the UK presidency on the 21 October 2005 in Brussels, chaired by the Commission.The UK was represented by officials from the UK Permanent Representation to the EU. This was attended by UKRep.(d) There were three meetings of the Advisory Committee on the Communities' own resources during the UK presidency, on 7 July, 13/14 October and 8 December. The Commission chaired these meetings. The UK representatives were officials from HMRC.These working groups deal with reserved matters and as such no provision was made for representation of the devolved Administrations.

Secondary information