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Theresa May faces new claims of dodging Parliamentary scrutiny after her team failed to reply to a Brexit watchdog.

The Tory leader of an EU committee has gone public with her frustration at ministers for not replying to a detailed report.

It's now six months since the House of Lords EU External Affairs Subcommittee published a 113-page review of trade after Brexit.

The report warned of big tariffs on products like cars, said trying to win an EU-UK free trade deal by 2019 would be "extremely ambitious" and called for a formal transition period.

But the cross-party committee says the government still has not formally responded.

Its Tory chairwoman Baroness Verma, a former minister herself, wrote to ministers yesterday: "We are disappointed that the Government continues to delay its formal response to the Committee’s report.

"This response is now four months late."

Baroness Verma said the government had first blamed the election, which carries strict limits on government work, for the delay.

But in her letter she said "there have now been several months" since this period ended.

The Brexit Department sent the committee its position papers on customs and Northern Ireland, which put forward two detailed plans for customs after Brexit but do not choose which one to follow.

Baroness Verma, however, said: "These are not a substitute for a formal written response to our report.

(Image: Getty Images Europe)

"We do not believe that the Government’s response should be delayed by your schedule of publication of these position papers.

"Given that this is the approach you have taken, please provide us with the date on which the final position paper will be published, which we will take to be the date on which we will receive the response."

It comes at the end of a week in which the government was repeatedly accused of dodging Parliamentary scrutiny.

On Monday night MPs passed sweeping 'Henry VIII' powers of proclamation to implement Brexit.

(Image: REX/Shutterstock)

On Tuesday night the Tories won a motion guaranteeing them a majority on key Commons committees - even though they lost their majority in the election.

On Wednesday Tory MPs boycotted two votes altogether on raising NHS pay and scapping tuition fee hikes.

Meanwhile there are reports the influential business group the CBI is pressing for a transition deal for "up to three years.”

The Daily Mail said the CBI has been passing around a letter to major firms for signatures ahead of publication in a Sunday newspaper.

Warring ministers agreed over the summer to have an "implementation" period in which Britain will try to closely mirror its current arrangements for years after 2019.