Committee undertakes scrutiny of Brexit-related treaties
21 January 2019
The House of Lords European Union Committee will scrutinise Brexit-related international agreements or treaties, from now until the end of the 2017-19 session of Parliament.
Background
On 14 January 2019 the House of Lords Procedure Committee decided to transfer responsibility for scrutinising Brexit-related international agreements or treaties from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee to the European Union Committee. This temporary arrangement will last until the end of the 2017-19 parliamentary session.
The EU has competence to enter into international agreements across a range of policy areas on behalf of its Member States. As a result, the UK is currently party to several hundred international agreements through its membership of the European Union, and when it ceases to be a member state could lose access to them. Therefore as part of its preparations for Brexit, the Government is seeking to put in place successor agreements.
The Committee's work scrutinising these agreements will be tracked on its web pages.
A simple overview of the process the Committee will follow is given in this flow-chart.