Foreign Affairs Committee calls for parliamentary scrutiny of treaty

The House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee is "very supportive" of the draft EU agreement for Gibraltar.

However, it says, the UK Parliament must have the opportunity to scrutinise the detail and raise any issues of concern.

In a letter to Europe Minister Stephen Doughty, the Committee's Chair Dame Emily Thornberry said the treaty contains several novel or unique provisions for Gibraltar's association to the EU's Schengen area, Customs Union and Single Market for goods.

She says there are still outstanding questions on the practical implementation of these new arrangements, and the provisions on sovereignty and the autonomy of the military infrastructure.

Dame Emily says the decision to avoid the disruption of the new Entry-Exit System by provisionally applying the treaty before formal ratification is "understandable".

However, she says it's regrettable that - given the length of the negotiations - this means there will now only be "an extremely truncated window for scrutiny" by Parliament before the treaty is applied.

The Chair of the Committee says it firmly believes the House of Commons should have the opportunity to debate the detail of the agreement, and to vote on its ratification - ideally before the new arrangements are applied, but in any case before they are formally ratified.

She also asks for the Europe Minister and his officials to make themselves available to the Committee to discuss the agreement during the scrutiny period.