Home Office and Ministry of Justice guilty of 'fundamental failure' to respect principles of transparency and accountability over EU Opt-ins - Lords EU Committee

Lord Boswell accuses both departments of failing to abide by Cabinet Office guidelines to make a statement to Parliament explaining the Government's decision to over-ride parliamentary scrutiny of the EU Council Decision allowing the UK block opt-in. This follows serious mistakes last month over the handling of the opt-in for a series of Justice and Home Affairs measures including the European Arrest Warrant.

The letter states that despite the controversy over the European Arrest Warrant a failure to learn from its mistakes ‘can now be added to the list of the Government's shortcomings'. Lord Boswell goes on to conclude that this latest mishandling of scrutiny is “symptomatic of a fundamental failure in your Departments…to understand and respect the principles of transparency and accountability”.

The letter sets out a long list of failings by the Government to allow proper time for parliamentary scrutiny of key decisions taken relating to the Justice and Home Affairs block opt-in.

Lord Boswell concludes his letter by describing it as “inconceivable” that these failures of scrutiny should have come about by accident, and says that it is more likely that they resulted from a “deliberate political decision not to facilitate proper parliamentary scrutiny” of the Government's decisions on EU Home Affairs, along with a “disregard of the Government's own Scrutiny Guidance”.

Lord Boswell states that he reserves the Committee's right to call both Ms May and Mr Grayling to appear before the Committee in early 2015 to account for their departments' failure to support parliamentary scrutiny and to outline the measures they will put in place to prevent future failures.