Written question asked by Andrew Pelling (Conservative) on Friday, 6 October 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 9 October 2006. It was answered by Jack Straw (Labour) on Monday, 9 October 2006 on behalf of the Leader of the House of Commons.

Legislation (European Commission)

Question: To ask the Leader of the House what proportion of the legislation passed in the Commons in the last nine years was in support of legislation arising from the European Commission.

Answer: The information is not held centrally and it would anyway be difficult to provide a full response to the question because of difficulties of categorisation and interpretation. For example, some primary legislation which includes provisions implementing community law might have been introduced anyway, for other reasons.However, parliamentary analysis of UK statutory instruments implemented annually under the European Communities Act since 1998 suggests that on average around 9 per cent. of all statutory instruments transpose EC legislation. I refer the hon. Member to section F of the House of Commons Library Standard Note SN/IA/2888 (25 July 2006).

Secondary information