SCRUTINISING THE WAB:
The government has allocated 3 days of scrutiny in the Commons for the Withdrawal Agreement Bill.
For a long, complex and constitutionally important bill, this is fundamentally inadequate.
Don't just take our word for it, here's what the experts say:
The government has allocated 3 days of scrutiny in the Commons for the Withdrawal Agreement Bill.
For a long, complex and constitutionally important bill, this is fundamentally inadequate.
Don't just take our word for it, here's what the experts say:
.@RuthFox01 of @HansardSociety – an expert on the use of secondary legislation. The WAB is full of these powers for ministers:
.@jasimsoncaird from @BinghamCentre – whose academic work has focussed on parliament’s scrutiny of constitutional legislation:
.@woodstockjag from the House of Commons Library – emphasises the importance of gaps in between legislative stages:
.@DanielGover, @QMUL, co-author with the Unit’s Meg Russell of Legislation at Westminster (OUP 2017), highlights the House of Lords Constitution Committee report on the legislative process saying the same thing:
.@DrHannahWhite from the @instituteforgov, argues that the Commons should reject the timetable: instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/governmen…
And, as a number of people have mischievously pointed out, @nmdacosta, the current Director of Legislative Affairs in No. 10, back in May of this year argued that the legislation would need more than 4 weeks of scrutiny:
And in December of last year, that it would be difficult for the WAB to be passed in by 29 March if a Meaningful Vote was passed at the end of January, ie. it would need 2 calendar months(!):
On top of the WAB, @Usherwood, Deputy Director of @UKandEU, has highlighted all the other bills necessary for leaving the EU - spoiler, there's a lot!
Here's our thread showing that other Brexit related bills, both long and short, had significantly longer scrutiny than is proposed for the WAB .
It's not this programme motion or nothing.
If the government is willing to make use of the extension requested by the PM on Saturday, a more sensible timetable for the bill could be proposed.
If the government is willing to make use of the extension requested by the PM on Saturday, a more sensible timetable for the bill could be proposed.
