Recommendation 21

There was considerable concern expressed to us that adequate records of NLBIs were not being kept and that there is insufficient public access to those NLBIs which have been reached. We received calls for a central repository of all NLBIs to be established. We were encouraged by the Government’s assurance that individual departments do 64 Parliamentary Scrutiny of International Agreements in the 21st century indeed keep records of the NLBIs that are reached. However, we were not convinced by the argument that establishing and maintaining a single repository for non- legally binding instruments would be overly burdensome. We therefore recommend the establishment of a central repository for all non-legally binding instruments, to be coordinated by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and made public on GOV.UK, and call for Parliament be notified of all new or updated documents added to that repository by way of a Written Ministerial Statement.