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EU: Codecision (EUC Report)

My Lords, the noble Lord gives good advice. I will take the issue back to my colleagues in government and advise them of your Lordships’ view. This leads me to the second point on which my smile and good will were being sought: the question of guidance. I can provide something very similar here. My honourable colleague the Minister for Europe will write to the noble Lord, Lord Roper, shortly on the question of limité documents. In the mean time, I shall ensure that he has sight of the debate in your Lordships’ House to guide his response. The second area of discussion between the Government and the committee that is still under way is on the scrutiny guidance that we can use within government to set up departments’ responsibility in this respect. The guidance is being updated to reflect the new commitments that we have made on the scrutiny of the ordinary legislative procedure. As has been said, it will also need to reflect our approach to limité documents. The committee has pressed us to make the whole of this document publicly available and subject to some drafting changes, which I hope are not the weasel words that concerned the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. We have no problem making this document publicly available on the Cabinet Office website, and again we hope to be able to implement that within the next month.