UK-EU Deals Could Bring Growing Pressure on Parliament to Scrutinise EU Law

Parliament faces growing pressure to scrutinise EU legislation under the UK's planned agreements with the bloc, a House of Lords committee has warned. The European Affairs Committee made the point as Prime Minister Andy Burnham prepares to meet EU leaders in Brussels next week to sign the deals.

The agreements cover three areas. The first is a sanitary and phytosanitary deal on food and farming, which sets rules on food safety and on animal and plant health. The second is an emissions trading deal, a system in which carbon emissions are capped and the right to emit is traded. The third is a youth mobility scheme.

The committee estimates that the food and farming deal alone could generate at least 780 pieces of EU law covered by the agreement every year. It said Parliament needs a robust, consistent and adequately resourced cross-departmental system to manage the UK's commitments on dynamic alignment, the practice of keeping UK rules matched to EU rules as they change.

The committee's chairman, Jock Stirrup, said the introduction of dynamic alignment would mark a major change to the UK-EU relationship as it stands under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the post-Brexit trade deal. As the UK aligns with more EU law, he said, Parliament will face growing pressure to scrutinise significant volumes of EU legislation.

Burnham has said the planned agreements could raise UK GDP, the total value of goods and services produced in the economy, by 0.4%. The committee's warning concerns the parliamentary workload that would follow the deals, not their economic effect.