Jacob Rees-Mogg has blocked an extension of a Commons committee tasked with scrutinising the Brexit process.
The Commons leader rejected a last-minute request by Labour’s Hilary Benn to extend the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union beyond its expiry date of January 16 for a further six months.
A letter by Rees-Mogg to Benn, who chairs the committee, reads on Guido‘s website: “There will be plenty of opportunities for questions, statements and debates, as well as the detailed analysis of the House select committees in the months ahead.
“Whilst this is ultimately a matter for the House, it is the view of the government that your committee’s work should come to an end in line with the current temporary Standing Orders, which were agreed by the House.”
The fate of the European Scrutiny Committee headed by Brexiteer Bill Cash is yet to be decided.
The Commons select committee is in charge of assessing the legal and political importance of EU legislation in parliament.
Earlier this week, Cash said the UK’s departure from the European Union marks the biggest change to politics since the evolution of democracy at the end of the Stuart dynasty.
He claimed: “It is a momentous moment which, by any historic standards, can only be compared in peacetime to what happened in the late 1680s and ‘90s.
“Which was the removal of the Stuarts, but followed by the new parliamentary constitutional arrangements which were enacted through the Act of Succession with the Hanoverians going on the throne.
“But followed by evolution of modern democracy which was only ruptured, apart from war, in terms of potential dangers of conquest, but was actually only disrupted by our entry into the European Community on the false prospectus in 1972.”
Mark Francois, chair of the European Research Group, meanwhile claimed that a “truly terrible year” had been salvaged by Brexit.
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