Inadequate Parliamentary Treaty Scrutiny
Insufficient parliamentary scrutiny and approval processes for international treaties, where implementing legislation is not a substitute.
Source spread
Where this theme appears
This theme appears across 4 independent accountability sources, so the source mix matters as much as the headline total.
112 committee recs
1 NAO rec
1 ISC report
Browse by source
Source-grouped records are useful for tracing where a concern came from. Large sections show the 50 strongest matches for that source; counts still show the full theme total.
Select committee recommendations(112)— showing 50 strongest matches
#5 —
Recommendation: In its response to this report, the government should set out how commitments made under the UK-US agreement will deliver tangible benefits for NHS patients and system sustainability, rather than simply improving commercial conditions for industry. It should commit to …
Response status not verified
#4 —
Recommendation: The UK-US pharmaceutical agreement has secured benefits— notably exemption from tariffs—but it also appears to have involved significant commitments affecting core elements of UK domestic policy. Changes relating to medicine spending, NICE thresholds, and the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines …
Response status not verified
#7 —
Recommendation: The Government should honour its commitments to the House and ensure the EPD and the recent UK-US agreements are presented properly to the House for scrutiny. If it cannot do this, the Government should explain how parliamentary scrutiny will be …
Response status not verified
#6 —
Recommendation: By implementing UK-US trade commitments through non-binding agreements and secondary legislation, the UK Government is conducting trade policy in a way that limits opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny. The Secretary of State suggested that Members would have the chance to scrutinise …
Response status not verified
#10 —
Recommendation: The UK has a strong capacity to use its memberships and influence to bring countries together in dialogue. Contributors also admired the UK as a pragmatic country whose thought leadership, and the legal drafting capabilities of the FCDO’s lawyers, can …
Response attribution not verified
#32 — Establish a convention for Commons to approve CD/OT related treaties only with their consent.
Recommendation: We are satisfied that the existing conventions are strong enough to ensure that a treaty will not be extended to the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories without their consent. This consent should also be communicated to Parliament at the point …
Response attribution not verified
#31 — Mandate Government to notify committees when discussing treaty extension with Crown Dependencies or Overseas Territories.
Recommendation: We are encouraged by the evidence we received on the regular and effective discussion and consultation between both the Ministry of Justice and Crown Dependencies and the FCDO and the Overseas Territories with regard to treaties that could be extended …
Response attribution not verified
#30 — Devolved legislatures' scrutiny of international agreements impacting their competence is crucial.
Recommendation: How the devolved legislatures choose to carry out effective scrutiny of relevant aspects is a matter for them to determine. However, we believe that their scrutiny of international agreements which involve areas of devolved competence is important. 66 Parliamentary Scrutiny …
Response attribution not verified
#29 — Review additional resources required for effective scrutiny of international agreements in Commons.
Recommendation: Effective scrutiny of international agreements requires both policy expertise and expertise in international agreements and law. We recommend that a review is carried out to consider whether and what additional resource is required to support effective scrutiny of international agreements …
Response attribution not verified
#28 — Strengthen international agreement scrutiny in Commons committees and establish a new bespoke committee.
Recommendation: The current arrangements in Parliament for the scrutiny of international agreements are not commensurate with their constitutional importance. The House of Lords has taken steps to address this constitutional lacuna with the establishment of the International Agreements Committee. By contrast, …
Response attribution not verified
#27 — Reach a working agreement between Government and Parliament on negotiation progress and mandates.
Recommendation: Given our recommendation that all treaties need to be subject to a parliamentary process for the UK to indicate consent to be bound, it would be in a Government’s best interest to consult and update Parliament regularly. We recommend that …
Response attribution not verified
#26 — Parliament's scrutiny of international agreements requires involvement throughout the entire lifecycle.
Recommendation: To carry out its constitutional function effectively in regard to the scrutiny of international agreements, it is not enough for Parliament to be involved only at the end of the process. A new approach to conceptualising international negotiations and international …
Response attribution not verified
#25 — Mandate UK Government to inform devolved governments of relevant NLBIs for central recording.
Recommendation: We stress the importance of the UK Government consistently informing devolved governments when it reaches an NLBI that has implications for devolved competence, and for this to be indicated in the central repository recommended in paragraph 94 above. Furthermore, we …
Response attribution not verified
#24 — Establish confidential briefing arrangements for Commons committees on secret NLBIs.
Recommendation: We recognise that, on occasion, there may be good reasons why the Government has to reach NLBIs in secret, for instance in relation to matters of defence or national security. This does not diminish the Government’s accountability to Parliament for …
Response attribution not verified
#23 — Require government to make time for NLBI debates upon committee or Opposition request.
Recommendation: We further believe that if a request is made by a parliamentary committee or the Leader of the Official Opposition for a debate and vote on an NLBI, the Government should make time for this on the floor of the …
Response attribution not verified
#22 — Parliament needs to be informed and scrutinise new non-legally binding instruments.
Recommendation: It is clear that NLBIs are already a significant part of how states manage relations between one another and make policy decisions internationally. Arrangements therefore need to be put in place for Parliament to be informed of new NLBIs and, …
Response attribution not verified
#9 — Prioritise updating Concordat on International Relations to clarify devolved treaty consultation arrangements.
Recommendation: While many of the principles in the Concordat on International Relations appear to us to continue to be the right ones, the Concordat itself clearly needs to be updated, and the cooperation that it facilitates must take place in earnest. …
Response attribution not verified
#8 — Outdated Concordat on International Relations requires urgent update for devolved nations.
Recommendation: The UK Government carries out negotiations and enters into treaties for the whole of the UK. However, under the UK’s devolution arrangements, day to day responsibility for areas of domestic policy which could be impacted by treaties often lies with …
Response attribution not verified
#7 — Require explicit House of Commons approval for all treaties before entering into force.
Recommendation: Currently, there is no requirement for Parliament to approve treaties. We find this situation untenable. Parliament’s approval must be sought when the Government seeks to bind or change in any material way the UK’s obligations under international law. We therefore …
Response attribution not verified
#6 — Parliament's insufficient engagement with international agreements undermines its core constitutional function.
Recommendation: Parliament is not sufficiently engaged with international agreements. The UK’s parliamentary democracy operates on the basis of the dual constitutional principles of parliamentary sovereignty and parliamentary accountability. As such it must be understood that scrutiny of international agreements is a …
Response attribution not verified
#5 — International agreements increasingly function as domestic legislation, requiring parliamentary concern.
Recommendation: Over the last century, there have been significant quantitative and qualitative changes to the nature of international agreements; they now reach into people’s everyday lives in the UK and around the world. They seek not only to deal with relations …
Response attribution not verified
#4 — Clarify in Cabinet Manual that implementing legislation agreement does not signify treaty approval.
Recommendation: We found the arguments that implementing legislation provides an appropriate opportunity for scrutinising and considering treaties in their entirety to be wholly unconvincing. As such, the current arrangements do not deliver a constitutionally sufficient level of scrutiny; nor do they …
Response attribution not verified
#3 — Domestic implementation required for treaties to affect UK law, but Parliament's influence is limited.
Recommendation: The UK is a dualist state, meaning that, in order for obligations entered into through treaties to have effect in UK law, domestic implementation is required. This is an important feature of the UK’s constitutional system, ensuring that any changes …
Response attribution not verified
#13 — Committee conducted urgent scrutiny of Children's Wellbeing Bill under government timetable constraints.
Recommendation: We have worked at pace on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to contribute to fulfil our scrutiny role within the parameters set by the Government’s timetable and increase transparency for the benefit of the House and, we hope, those …
Response attribution not verified
#12 — Inadequate time and resources prevented detailed scrutiny of Bill's delegated powers.
Recommendation: We have not had the time or resource to comb through the Bill or take evidence on the delegated powers within it, although we note that the published Delegated Powers Memorandum for the Bill is 75 pages long. We stated …
Response attribution not verified
#4 — Require Government to follow legislative guidelines and engage meaningfully with select committees
Recommendation: We recommend that the Government undertakes to follow the Cabinet Office Guide to Making Legislation and engage meaningfully, and in a timely way, with select committees as a way of improving policy making and building consensus on important legislation. We …
Response attribution not verified
#3 — Government disregarded guidelines and hindered scrutiny of Bill through poor engagement
Recommendation: The Government has neither followed its own guidelines, nor engaged as productively as we would have liked with our Committee over this Bill. The interval between introduction and Second Reading was not long enough for proper preparation by Members of …
Response attribution not verified
#2 — Government's compressed bill timetable obstructs effective select committee scrutiny
Recommendation: The Government did not, in this case, publish the Bill in draft. Nonetheless, the Bill’s timetable could have factored in time for our Committee to come to a considered view on its contents. Although the Minister for School Standards had …
Response attribution not verified
#60 — Implement the Beijing Treaty, extending moral rights to audiovisual performances, within six months.
Recommendation: We repeat our predecessor Committee’s calls for the Government to implement the Beijing Treaty within the next six months, including extending unwaivable moral rights to audiovisual performances. (Recommendation, Paragraph 209) The work of the BFI
Response attribution not verified
#25 — Engage with EU 'European works' discussions and report actions to protect UK status.
Recommendation: The Government must be fully engaged with the EU’s discussions on ‘European works’ and mitigate any potential changes to the UK’s status under it. We ask the Government to write to us every six months with its latest assessment of …
Response attribution not verified
#29 — Ministry of Defence fails to outline precise methodology for annual spending plan updates to Parliament.
Recommendation: At the end of our evidence session, we asked the Department to write to us setting out a satisfactory and precise methodology for providing Parliament with an update on its spending plans at least once a year.62 The Permanent Secretary …
Response attribution not verified
#28 — Ministry of Defence provides unsatisfactory proposals for parliamentary scrutiny of future spending plans.
Recommendation: We held this inquiry in the sincere hope that by its end we would have heard clear proposals from the Department as to how this Committee, and by extension Parliament, would be able to scrutinise annually the crucial issue of …
Response attribution not verified
#6 — Provide Parliament with annual Defence Nuclear Enterprise costs, budget proportion, and variance explanations.
Recommendation: The ever-increasing cost of the Defence Nuclear Enterprise (the DNE) is likely to add pressure on the Department’s overall budgets. In 2024–25 the nuclear budget was £10.9 billion, around 18% of the whole defence budget (unchanged as a percentage from …
Response attribution not verified
#5 — Provide Parliament with proposal for annual equipment procurement updates by September 2025.
Recommendation: We are extremely disappointed that the Permanent Secretary did not have concrete suggestions for how the Department will provide Parliament with annual reporting on its plans. The Department last published a full Equipment Plan in November 2022. Since July 2023, …
Response attribution not verified
#43 — Delayed publication of Department's accounts undermines parliamentary scrutiny and public assurance.
Recommendation: The Department stated that it has worked to bring forward the delivery of its 2024–25 accounts to September 2025, a four-month improvement in timeliness. To do so, the Department said it had performed a significant lessons-learned exercise alongside the National …
Response attribution not verified
#22 — Managing Public Money requires timely parliamentary notification of commitments and department agreed to notify committee.
Recommendation: Managing Public Money explains that whilst departments may make commitments to future expenditure without explicit parliamentary authority, Parliament should be notified of the existence of these commitments on a 31 DBT ARA 2023–24, p 154 32 Q 21 33 Correspondence …
Response attribution not verified
#21 — Department did not consider Letter of Support required separate parliamentary notification.
Recommendation: The Department did not consider the Letter of Support to require separate notification to Parliament in line with the requirements of Managing Public Money on the basis of the following:35 • Issuing the Letter of Support is not outside of …
Response attribution not verified
#4 — Require Government to provide ten sitting weeks for Select Committee National Policy Statement scrutiny.
Recommendation: Given that the Government, in its Planning and Infrastructure Bill, is seeking to disapply the current requirement for the Secretary of State to respond to any resolutions made by a committee in either House of Parliament, we recommend that the …
Response attribution not verified
#3 — Government failed to create sufficient space for effective parliamentary scrutiny of energy policy statements.
Recommendation: These statements are very important in determining how energy infrastructure will be developed for the foreseeable future. The process was established, by the last Labour government, to provide Parliament with a voice and time to determine what to say. It …
Response attribution not verified
#2 — Government failed to respect parliamentary scrutiny by not providing timely process information.
Recommendation: The Government has failed to respect the value of Parliamentary scrutiny in this process. It refused to listen to our concerns with its initial timescales until it was too late for us to utilise additional time effectively. The issues considered …
Response attribution not verified
#8 — Ensure adequate time for a full House of Commons debate on the Economic Prosperity Deal.
Recommendation: Given the significance of the Economic Prosperity Deal for UK trade policy, the Government must ensure that time is made available in the House of Commons for a full debate on a substantive motion. (Recommendation, Paragraph 53) National and Sectoral …
Response attribution not verified
#7 — Set out a clear timetable for parliamentary scrutiny and stakeholder engagement of implementing measures.
Recommendation: We further recommend that the Government set out, in advance of ratification, a clear timetable for parliamentary scrutiny and stakeholder engagement and of any implementing measures, so that Members and affected sectors can assess the implications of the deal before …
Response attribution not verified
#6 — Ensure all substantive government trade commitments are subject to full parliamentary scrutiny.
Recommendation: We recommend that whenever the Government makes substantive trade commitments, whatever form this takes, it must ensure that they are subject to full parliamentary scrutiny. (Recommendation, Paragraph 51)
Response attribution not verified
#4 — GT-EPD scrutiny limited due to informal negotiation and absent economic impact analysis.
Recommendation: We welcome the extension of the treaty parliamentary scrutiny period from 10 to 20 sitting days, as set out in the Trade Strategy. However, we regret that scrutiny of the GT-EPD are limited due to the trade-related provisions having been …
Response attribution not verified
#18 — Keep Committee fully appraised of Government's work and decisions regarding ICAI's future.
Recommendation: As its Parliamentary oversight body, this Committee must be kept fully appraised of the Government’s work and decision-making around ICAI’s future. (Recommendation, Paragraph 37)
Response attribution not verified
#41 — Publish detailed plans for parliamentary scrutiny of SPS agreement and assimilated EU law.
Recommendation: The Government should publish detailed plans for parliamentary scrutiny of the SPS agreement and any future EU legislation that would be assimilated into GB law once within a common SPS area. (Recommendation, Paragraph 102)
Response attribution not verified
#40 — Publish plans for parliamentary scrutiny of dynamic alignment and Parliament's future role.
Recommendation: We believe that our remit and responsibilities make this Committee the most appropriate body for scrutiny of SPS policy. We are therefore disappointed that the Minister for the Constitution and European Union Relations refused to appear before us. We echo …
Response attribution not verified
#19 — Ensure devolved administrations hold formal consultative positions in SPS negotiations, outlining participation mechanisms
Recommendation: The Government should ensure that the devolved administrations have a formal consultative position in the negotiations, and outline, in response to this report, the meetings and other mechanisms for this. The Government should also consider the UK-EU SPS agreement as …
Response attribution not verified
#18 — SPS negotiations hold significant implications for devolved administrations and internal market challenges
Recommendation: SPS negotiations have significant implications for the devolved administrations. While the UK Government leads negotiations, it must take account of the specific needs and priorities of each nation, including regional conditions. Internal market challenges, such as those arising from England’s …
Response attribution not verified
#2 — Establish and publish the scope of SPS negotiations for effective consultation
Recommendation: The Government and EU should establish the scope of the SPS negotiations as a priority and publish this information on an interim basis, prior to the conclusion of negotiations, to enable effective consultation and scrutiny. (Recommendation, Paragraph 16)
Response attribution not verified