Caroline Lucas – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2016-05-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what plans the Government has for parliamentary scrutiny of the EU-Canada trade agreement; and whether the Government will bring that agreement to the House for a vote.

Anna Soubry

We expect that the EU–Canada Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) will be a “mixed” agreement, covering areas of both EU and Member State competence. In that case, it will be subject to agreement by each EU Member State, the EU Council and the European Parliament. As part of this process the agreement will be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny before it is ratified by the UK. The complete draft text of the agreement would be laid before Parliament for at least 21 sitting days during which time MPs and Lords may debate the treaty in either or both Houses and vote against the proposed ratification. For the parts of the agreement within UK competence, the proposals for a Council decision on signature and, subsequently, conclusion will be subject to scrutiny in both Houses of the UK Parliament. In practice EU trade agreements which contain a mixture of EU and Member State competence are agreed by consensus, this means the UK must agree before the treaty can fully come into force.