Thread by @nvonwestenholz

If you’re wondering whether the time being made available for Parliamentary scrutiny the Withdrawal Agreement Bill is adequate - a comparison with the recent Agriculture Bill /1

Both Bills will establish the future of UK farming, for better or worse, for decades to come. Making sure they are right is a critical responsibility for anyone who cares about our food, farming, welfare standards and natural environment /2

Agriculture Bill – 36 clauses over 25 pages, plus an additional 5 schedules over 31 pages – most of which replicate the main clauses in the Bill to apply to Wales and NI

EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill – 40 clauses over 40 pages, plus an additional 6 schedules over 70 pages /3

The Agriculture Bill had its Second Reading (almost 6 hours of debate) on 10th October 2018/

It then went through 14 separate sessions in Committee between 23rd October and 20th November 2019. Each session tends to last between 2 and 3 hours. 4/

Unfortunately the Bill never returned for Report Stage. It hadn’t even got half way through its passage, but had already had around 40 hours of debate 5/

Furthermore, the debates and line-by-line scrutiny happened over more than a month - this is important as that time allows experts and stakeholders outside Parliament to provide comment and oversight of the Bill to Parliamentarians to assist their deliberations). 6/

How does this compare to the programme motion on the WAB, which will be voted on tonight? Lets just say its a lot, lot shorter!

instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/governmen…