Speeches by Lamb.

“That might be why it is not necessarily in the paperwork. What instigated it?”

“The Committee has not been aware of that task and finish group before. How long has the group been running?”

“Reference has been made to co-producing this with local government. If it is a nationally implemented standard, how do you feel that would work in practice?”

“I appreciate that these things happen for a range of different reasons, but the Government clearly got some criticism early on around some of these issues. Where action appears not to be happening promptly, that will always raise questions as to what the reasons behind that are, and the public may not always make a cha…”

“Previously, there were plans to create a transparency portal. We understand that those were dropped due to a lack of funding. Can we get an idea of how much that was estimated to cost?”

“That would be great. One interesting thing is that small organisations such as Transparency International UK have taken this task on themselves, and are managing to build an accessible source of information for the general public, in a way that the Government have not managed to do. Is there a reason why those organisa…”

“Our predecessor Committee published a very fine report looking at the lobbying Act. The Government have not yet commented on the report, saying that the area is under review. Could you tell us what is currently under review?”

“If it is not currently happening, could we have more detail as to what exactly is holding it up and when it might be concluded? Moving on, in your letter to us in December, you noted the improvements to departmental transparency data under this Government. Certainly, there have been a lot of improvements, and we have b…”

“I appreciate that this might not have been your total focus, but it would be useful for this Committee to have some idea when we could get a response to the report published by its predecessor.”

“What work is currently taking place on that review?”

“At the start of the parliamentary Session the European Scrutiny Committee was brought to an end, with the Leader of the House saying it was no longer required because we are no longer subject to EU documents, despite the fact that we are subject to the European withdrawal agreement. Do you think the Government would su…”

“I would not disagree with any of that. The point is that we need to ensure there is some mechanism for democratic oversight in the process. Our previous relationship with the European Union suggests that having mechanisms to scrutinise things enabled us to better honour our commitments and to ensure they were implement…”

“The possibility of the UK having a role in the decision-shaping process has been discussed to ensure some level of input into the regulations—we touched on this earlier—that would be subject to dynamic alignment. Can you tell us exactly what decision shaping will look like for us as a non-member state, and how can we e…”

“Fair enough, Minister. Will Parliament be given an approval vote on the deal with the EU as a whole, or will it be on separate parts of the deal as it emerges to ensure there is democratic legitimacy on the different aspects?”

“Who would be best to speak to about these arrangements?”

“Beyond the current agreements, the Bill will also reportedly allow for dynamic alignment to extend to other economic sectors in the future. We believe that parliamentary scrutiny for any such decisions will be essential. What parliamentary scrutiny mechanisms can we expect the Government to build into the Bill?”

“We will return to your opinion later, Chair, if you don’t mind.”

“When is the Bill likely to be introduced?”

“Clearly the Leader of the House, who is a member of the Government, has a significant role to play in that decision.”

“Can we expect a Select Committee to be tasked with reviewing the secondary legislation as it proceeds through Parliament?”