On some occasions papers may not go ahead for consideration at a meeting that they have been lodged for, or a Cabinet committee might decide that a paper should not proceed. In these instances, Ministers may choose to withdraw a submission from a meeting.
Contact the Cabinet Office before the Cabinet or Cabinet committee meeting if your Minister intends to withdraw a paper.
If a Minister decides not to proceed with a Cabinet paper that has been lodged in CabNet, and the meeting agenda has not yet been finalised, then a paper does not need to be formally withdrawn and can instead be removed from an agenda by Cabinet Committee Secretary. The Cabinet Office can also remove papers that have been accidentally lodged.
Once the Cabinet Office has published a final agenda, and the status of the submission has moved to ‘Confirmed on agenda’ in CabNet, then a paper can only be withdrawn or deferred at the meeting for which it has been submitted. A minute will be issued for the item recording that it was withdrawn, and the submission status of the item in CabNet will change to 'withdrawn'.
In CabNet:
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the fact that the paper has been withdrawn will be recorded in the 'my activities' and 'recently shared' sections on the homepage, and in the email digest that users receive twice a day if they have chosen to
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the submission remains attached to the meeting that it was was withdrawn from, and accessible by anyone who had access to it at the point it was withdrawn
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the submission will still come up in CabNet searches.
Note that withdrawn submissions cannot be reinstated, and instead a new submission would need to be lodged.