CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
bids for urgent legislation by 3 pm on Monday as before, with prioritised bids for a full legislative programme postponed by one week to Wednesday 22 April. It was our impression this morning that the first opportunity Ministers have to look collectively at the Maastricht legislation would be even later than this, at a projected meeting of the E Sub-Committee on about 27 April. I infer however that it will be necessary for a new Secretary of State to put in an FCO bid before then, and we have already flagged the item in the Steering Brief as one requiring early Ministerial attention.
4.
The Cabinet Office's deadline of next Monday relates to a first meeting of the Future Legislation Ministerial Committee (FLG) the following day, which will want to make recommendations to Cabinet colleagues for the very earliest items of Parliamentary business, even before a full legislative programme is considered. It seems to me that the only candidate we have in this category is the Mauritius (Republic) Bill, though it might well be a good idea to use the covering letter as a way to flag the European Communities Bill as something which will require attention pretty shortly thereafter. I assume, however, that we could not do any of this without Ministerial approval and this seems to me to indicate (subject to your views) a submission for Friday evening or the weekend which would (a) seek approval for Mauritius, (b) flag the issue of Maastricht and (c) promise a more considered submission on legislative plans for the full session during the course of the following week, for final decision by 21/22 April.
Hung Parliament/Coalition
In this eventuality, the timing is self-evidently unpredictable and the Cabinet Office will not be able to set the machinery in motion until there is a Government in office.
5.
6. We agreed that under none of the above scenarios would it be necessary to ask for urgent attention to GCHQ etc., since Conservative Ministers have a timetable in mind for policy discussion and legislative plans, whereas in the case of the Labour Party there is a manifesto commitment, which we would take into account in the second submission on the full legislative programme.
7. I pointed out this morning that an FCO Minister is not usually a member of the FLG Committee, but the practice is often to ask a departmental Minister to attend for discussion of a departmental bid. Mr Garel-Jones has done this for us in the past.
I am therefore copying this minute to his Private Secretary as Mr Garel-Jones or his successor may have to be on standby.
F D Berman
CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
FB9BGL
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