This
paper seeks to describe the committee system of the
House of Commons at Westminster, and to define the
functions of the different types of committee.
Types
of Committees
Committees
of the Whole House
The
House occasionally takes the committee stage of a bill
on the floor of the House. In order to do so, it forms
itself into a Committee of the Whole House. In former
times there were Committees of the Whole House to deal
with financial business, namely the Committee of Ways
and Means and the Committee of Supply, but these no
longer exist. There are, however, proposals currently
being considered for a new kind of 'parallel Chambers'
sitting in Westminster Hall's Grand Committee Room,
based on models in the House of Lords and elsewhere in
the Commonwealth.
Standing
Committees
The
House employs standing committees to undertake the
committee stages of most bills, to debate statutory
instruments and other types of delegated legislation and
to debate proposals for European legislation and other
European Union documents. There are also three standing
committees known as grand committees, which are
constituted to allow Members sitting for constituencies
in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to debate
matters of particular interest to those countries. Their
role will be reviewed following the setting up of the
Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Ireland
Assemblies. The size of standing committees varies from
a minimum of 13 (for the European Committees) to a
maximum of 72 (for the Scottish Grand Committee).
Standing committees on Bills may have between 15 and 50
Members, but are generally in the range of 16 to 30. The
style of debate is generally more relaxed in standing
committee than on the floor of the House, a feature
which is reinforced by the lifting, in committees, of
the prohibition against speaking more than once on any
Question. However, the basic mode of proceeding in
standing committee remains that of debate, rather than
the select committees mode of proceeding by means of
inquiry or deliberation, and the basic rules of debate
which apply in the House apply also in standing
committee, so that the overall style is much the same in
both contexts. This is reflected in the layout of
standing committee rooms, which are essentially
scaled-down copies of the Chamber itself.
Select
Committees
The
rather confusing title of “select committee” is a
survival from a time when standing committees with a
continuing existence were established to consider
classes of Bills and select committees were appointed by
the House to consider a particular matter or Bill, and
once they had made their report they ceased to exist. In
modern practice, select committees usually have a
standing membership appointed for a whole Parliament
whereas most standing committees are appointed ad hoc to
consider some particular item of legislation. Most
select committees have a general remit given to them by
the House to enquire into a particular subject area and
to report from time to time. Within this broad remit
they largely determine their own agenda.
The
largest group of select committees is composed by the
so-called departmentally related-select committees
appointed under S.O. No. 152 to monitor the activities
of government departments. The standing order at present
provides for 16 of these. There are also the four
domestic committees concerned with the internal workings
of the House, appointed under S.O. No. 142. To these may
be added the Broadcasting Committee appointed under S.O.
139 and the Finance and Services Committee appointed
under S.O. No. 144. The Procedure Committee, appointed
since the 1997 general election under S.O. No. 147, is
charged with considering proposals for reform of the
House's procedures and related matters. There is also
the Select Committee on the Modernisation of the House
of Commons, appointed for the current Parliament.
Another general category is the group known as the
'scrutiny committees'. This includes the Joint/Select
Committee on Statutory Instruments, the Deregulation
Committee, the European Legislation Committee and the
Joint Committees on Consolidation, &c, bills and on
tax simplification bills. These share the general
characteristic of being charged with the examination of
various types of legislation or proposals for
legislation against fairly specific criteria. There is
also the Public Accounts Committee which deals with
public money across the whole range of government
expenditure. The functions of the Liaison Committee,
which brings together the chairmen of the select
committees, is also described below. There are two other
select committees which do not fall into any of the
above categories. These are the Public Administration
Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee.
The
House continues from time to time to appoint select
committees which are not specifically provided for in
its standing orders to enquire into particular matters.
In 1995, a select committee was appointed for the
specific task of making recommendations on the
implementation of the proposals of the Committee on
Standards in Public Life. The quinquennial armed forces
bills are by tradition committees to a select committee
appointed for the purpose. The Modernization Committee,
appointed for the current parliament, is another
example.
The
Members of select committees are appointed on a motion
made in the House. S.O. NO. 121(1) requires that notice
should be given of a motion to appoint or discharge
Members to or from a select committee, and that the
Members to be nominated should have given their consent.
S.O. No. 121(2) requires motions for the nomination or
discharge of Members to or from a departmentally related
select committee or domestic committees to be moved on
behalf of the Committees of Selection (see below).
Where
the actual size of a committee is not laid down in a
standing order, it will be specified in the order
creating the committee. Though there is no explicit
requirement in standing orders for the membership of
select committees to be proportionate to the relative
party strengths in the House, this convention is
invariably observed. The balance of parities is
calculated across the membership of all select
committees - the minor opposition parties will therefore
be represented only on a proportion of select
committees. The party which has a majority in the House
can expect to have a majority on any select committee.
Joint
Committees
Joint
committees are committees consisting of Members of both
the Commons and the Lords. Three joint committees are
established under standing orders. These are the Joint
Committee on Statutory Instruments, the Joint Committee
on Consolidation, &c, Bills and the Joint Committees
on Tax Simplification Bills. S.O. No. 63(2) provides for
joint committees of other public bills though there has
been no example of such a committee in recent decades.
The House might in theory propose a joint committee to
the Lords on any matter. One was appointed in 1997 to
consider parliamentary privilege, and one is to be
established in due course to consider reform of the
House of Lords. There is also a joint committee
currently considering a draft bill on financial services
regulation.
The
Committee of Selection
The
Committee of Selection does not directly appear in the
public business standing orders because, by a quirk of
history, it is established under the standing orders of
the House relating to private business. It has nine
members and a quorum of three. Its most active Members
are the Pairing Whips from the government and official
opposition and the Whip of the third largest party in
the House. Like select committees, the committee elects
its own chairman and largely determines its own methods
of proceeding. The Committee's principal task is to
appoint Members to standing committees and to private
bill committees. Nominations to standing committees are
made by way of a report to the House.
Under
paragraph (2) of S.O. No. 86, the Committee of Selection
is required to 'have regard to the qualifications of
those Members nominated and to the composition of the
House'. In effect this means that the proportions of
government and opposition Members on a standing
committee will reflect the relative strengths of the
parties in the House. If the government has a majority
(however small) in the House, it will have a majority of
at least one on a standing committee. Additionally, the
Committee of Selection will as a matter of course put on
any Minister who wishes to be nominated and the
recognized opposition front benchers who shadow those
Ministers. There will also be a Whip from the government
and opposition. The 'minor' parties will in a general be
entitled to one or two places on a standing committee,
and they will seek to allocate these places between them
by agreement. Once a standing committee has entered on
its consideration of a bill, the Committee of Selection
will only alter its membership in exceptional
circumstances.
Under
S.O. No. 121(2), the Committee of Selection also
recommends to the House which Members should be
appointed to the departmental select committees
established under S.O. No. 152 or the domestic
committees appointed under S.O. No. 142. A motion to
appoint or discharge Members of or from committees
established under either of those standing orders can be
moved only by a member of the Committee of Selection.
Amendments to such motions can, however, by proposed by
any Member. At least two sitting days' notice must be
given of such a motion. The Committee of Selection does
not enjoy any of the usual powers of select committees
to take evidence, meet in public, travel or sit on days
when the House does not.
Committees
and Legislation
Standing
Committees on Bills
As
described below, Bills may be committed to a committee
of the whole House, a select committee or a joint
committee as well as to a standing committee or special
standing committee. The vast majority of Bills, however,
are committed to a standing committee, and a small
number each year go to a committee of the whole House.
Special standing committees on Bills are relatively
rare, and select committees and joint committees rarer
still. However, these arrangements are under review,
following recommendations from the Modernisation
Committee.
Under
S.O. No. 86, the Committee of Selection nominates
between 16 and 50 Members to each standing committee on
a Bill. The usual number is between 16 and 30, though
the Finance Bill Standing Committee is often larger.
With the exceptions set out in below, only those Members
nominated to a standing committee on a Bill may
participate in its proceedings or sit in the body of the
committee.
When
a committee has reported a Bill to the House, all the
Members nominated to it in respect of that particular
Bill stand automatically discharged, and new Members
must be nominated in respect of another Bill. Under S.O.
No. 84(2), the Speaker allocates bills to standing
committees. There is no limit to the number of standing
committees on Bills that may be set up at any one time.
Over the course of an average session there will usually
be five or six. They are given the title Standing
Committee A, B etc. Once established, they remain in
existence for the remainder of the session, and bills
may be allocated to each of them successively. The
membership is appointed afresh for each Bill. There is
sometimes a 'queue' of bills in standing committee, and
the government may, under S.O. No. 84(4), determine the
order in which they are considered (except in the case
of Standing Committee C which deals with Private
Members' bills). Once a committee has entered on its
consideration of a Bill it must conclude that
consideration (or make some other report to the House if
it cannot do so) before it commences consideration of
another Bill.
Chairmen
of Standing Committees
Under
S.O. No. 85 the Speaker appoints a chairman or chairmen
to chair each standing committee on a Bill or on
delegated legislation from among the Members of the
Chairmen's Panel. For a standing committee on a
government Bill there will usually be two chairmen, one
drawn from the government benchers and one from the
opposition benches. Under S.O. No. 89(3), the chairman
of a standing committee has delegated to him or her:
·
the power of selection of amendments under S.O. No. 32;
·
the power to decide whether to accept a motion for
proposal of the question or for the closure;
·
the power to refuse to allow a dilatory motion to be
moved;
·
the power to order a Member who persists in irrelevance
or tedious repetition to resume his or her seat; and
·
the power, in a standing committee on a bill, to put the
question on clause stand part without debate.
The
chairman of a standing committee also has a general
responsibility to enforce the conventions and rules of
debate. A chairman has a general discretion to suspend
the sitting of a committee as he considers expedient,
subject to his duty to make progress with the Bill or
other matter before it. If a division is called in the
House while a standing committee is sitting, the
chairman must, under S.O. No. 89(4), suspend the sitting
for long enough to enable Members of the committee to
vote in the House.
The
chairman of a standing committee fixes the time of its
first meeting (except in the case of the grand
committees), though he or she will usually allow the
Member in charge to choose a convenient time. Where a
standing committee on a Bill or some other matter
adjourns 'before concluding consideration of a Bill,
either pursuant to S.O. No. 89(1) or to its own
decision, and no time has been fixed for its next
meeting, the chairman may appoint a day and time for its
next sitting. Standing Committees on bills generally
meet once or twice on each Tuesday or Thursday but by
tradition Private Members Bills are usually committed to
Standing Committee C which normally meets on Wednesdays.
A chairman may invite a Member of a standing committee
to take the Chair in his place if necessary, for a
maximum of fifteen minutes. Such temporary chairmen do
not enjoy any of the powers of a chairman described
above.
Procedure
for Standing Committees
Once
a Bill has been committed to a standing committee or to
a committee of the whole House, amendments may be tabled
to it. Amendments to Bills committed to select or joint
committees are dealt with by the committees in private.
Amendments do not, in theory, require written notice to
have been given before they can be moved in committee.
In practice, the chairman will only in very exceptional
circumstances select amendments moved without notice
(known as manuscript amendments). Nor will a chairman
generally select an amendment which was tabled only on
the previous day on which Parliament sat (known as a
starred amendment because when printed on the Amendment
Paper for a committee sitting it is marked by a star in
indicate that it has not previously appeared). Thus in
practice, in order to be eligible for selection, an
amendment must have been tabled at the latest on the day
two sitting days before that on which it is debated.
Amendments may not be tabled before a Bill has been
given its second reading, unless the House has passed a
motion specifically authorising this.
Selection
and Grouping of Amendments
Under
S.O. No. 32 as applied by S.O. No. 89(3)(a), the
chairman of a standing committee has the power of
selection amongst those amendments, new clauses or new
schedules which are in order. Although this power is
arbitrary, and there is no appeal beyond the chairman,
it is generally exercised with discretion and chairmen
are predisposed to give the balance of any doubt to the
Member proposing the amendment. Possible reasons for a
chairman not to select an amendment might include: that
it sought to reopen a question already thoroughly
covered; that the amendment was offered in the wrong
place in the Bill or should more properly be a new
clause; that the amendment is itself nonsensical, or
that it would make a nonsense of the rest of the Bill
without the making of consequential amendments which had
not been tabled; that it was a 'wrecking amendment;
which would destroy the purpose of the Bill as agreed to
by the House on second reading, or that it would reverse
all the effective provision of a clause; that it was
trivial, or vexatious in intention; or that it was
otherwise without merit. Under S.O. No. 32(3), as
applied by S.O. No. 89, the chairman can request a
Member to explain the purpose of a proposed amendment to
a committee before making a decision on whether to allow
it to be proposed as an amendment. Generally speaking,
if an amendment is proposed by the Member in charge and
it is in order, the chairman will almost always select
it.
The
Chair's exercise of the power of selection over
amendments and new clauses or schedules facilitates the
orderly consideration of the provisions of a bill and
those alternative or supplementary provisions proposed
by way of amendments. To this same end, having selected
amendments from among those which are proposed and are
in order, the Chair then proposes groupings of
amendments to a committee. The purpose of this exercise
is to group together all those amendments relating to a
particular theme or point. There are two obvious types
of groupings which the Chair will propose. The first is
where amendments represent alternative and incompatible
propositions. If they were debated separately, the
decision to agree the first would effectively rule out
debate on the second or subsequent proposals, so it is
obviously for the convenience of the committee to be
able to debate the arguments for and against all of the
propositions before taking a decision. The second
obvious type of group is that in which a number of
amendments are clearly interdependent, and if one stands
or falls the rest must stand or fall with it. Again, it
is obviously for the convenience of the committee to
consider all the constituent parts of the proposition in
one debate. The third general type of group is one,
which brings together amendments which, while not
actually strictly interdependent or mutually
incompatible, are all addressed to a similar theme
running through the Bill. There will always be room for
disagreement about which amendments do and do not fall
within a definition of some broad theme, but the
chairman will be seeking to facilitate debate in the
committee and generally his or her groupings will appear
convenient to the Members.
Other
Types of Committees dealing with Bills
As
described above, most legislation is sent to standing
committees for its committee stage. However, there are
occasions when other types of committee are used for
this purpose.
Special
Standing Committees
Members
are appointed to a special standing committee in exactly
the same manner as appointments to an ordinary standing
committee are made. Procedure in special standing
committees is governed by S.O. No. 91. In essence, this
provides for the committee to hold one private
deliberative meeting and three public evidence taking
sessions (none of more than three hours duration) during
the 28 days following the Bills' committal. During these
three evidence-taking sessions the committee behaves
much like a select committee, and paragraph (2) of the
standing order provides that a Member who is not a
member of the Chairmen's Panel may be appointed by the
Speaker to chair these sittings. It is often the
chairman of the relevant departmental select committee.
Once these four sittings are over, the committee
proceeds in exactly the same manner as a standing
committee. The period of 28 days during which these
evidence sessions may occur may be extended by a motion
made in the House. The Moderisation Committee has
recommended greater flexibility in these time limits,
and also that evidence-taking sessions could be held
away from Westminister.
In
the case of a Bill which has been certified as relating
exclusively to Scotland, and which has been considered
by the Scottish Grand Committee, if it is committed to a
special standing committee, the three evidence-taking
sessions may be held in Scotland. It is unlikely
following devolution that any further Bills will be so
certified.
Select
Committees
If
a Bill is committed to a select committee, the House
will have to pass a separate order establishing the
committee, naming its Members, fixing its quorum, and
granting it any necessary powers to call for documents
and witnesses, to travel, or to sit when the House is
not sitting. In recent times, the only bills, other than
hybrid Bills, committed to select committees have been
the quinquennial armed forces Bills.
The
committees take evidence and deliberate like any select
committee, and may produce a report. At the conclusion
of their inquiry, they may make amendments to the Bill
in private session. Proposed amendments are not
published outside the committee. To some extent the
committee can choose its own procedure for doing this,
but by and large is likely to adopt something like
standing committee procedure. The chairman of a select
committee on a Bill does not, however, have the power of
selection of amendments. At the conclusion of their
proceedings they report the bill to the House in the
usual way and, if it has been amended, it will be
reprinted. Bills considered in select committee are
generally re-committed.
Recently,
on the initiative of the modernisation committee, a
number of draft bills have been sent to select
committees for pre-legislative consideration. Both
departmental committees and ad hoc select committees
have been used for this purpose.
Joint
Committees
If
the House resolved under S.O. No. 63(2) that it was
'expedient' to commit a bill to a joint committee of
Lords and Commons, it would send a message to the Lords
informing them of this and inviting their agreement to
the proposal. If the Lords concurred, they would return
a message to that effect. The Commons would then
nominate its Members to the committee and send a further
message to the Lords informing them and inviting them to
nominate an equal number of Peers, and the Lords would
reply in due course with their nominations.
A
joint committee of the Commons and Lords would be likely
to proceed in broadly the same manner as a select
committee, as described in the preceding paragraphs,
though joint committee procedure has certain
differences. They would presumably report the Bill to
whichever House had originally proposed that it be
committed to a joint committee. Tax simplification bills
are to be automatically committed to the special Joint
Committee on Tax Simplification Bills, if any are ever
introduced.
Standing
Committees on Delegated Legislation
S.O.
No. 118(1) provides for standing committees to consider
delegated legislation. There can be any number of these,
set up in a session, and they are known as the 'First',
'Second' and so on. In fact, they have no continuing
existence, and these titles are largely irrelevant. The
members of each committee are appointed to the committee
in respect of each instrument or group of instruments
and cease to be members of the committee as soon as that
instrument or those instruments have been considered.
The
Members are appointed to a delegated legislation
standing committee by the Committee of Selection (see
above). The usual size of such a committee is 18 or 19,
but the number is not fixed and can be any number
between 16 and 50. However, unlike standing committees
on Bills, any Member of the House is entitled to attend
a meeting of a standing committee on delegated
legislation and to take part in its debate although they
may not vote and do not count towards the committee's
quorum. The chairmen of delegated legislation standing
committees are appointed by the Speaker from the
Chairmen's Panel (see above), and they enjoy broadly the
same powers as chairmen of standing committees on Bills.
The powers to select amendments or to accept motions for
closure are, however, largely irrelevant to these
committees.
Instruments
subject to affirmative resolution procedure are referred
automatically to a delegated legislation standing
committee. Negative procedure instruments and other
instruments may be so referred by motion. The Speaker
then allocates each instrument which stands referred to
a standing committee to a particular committee and
appoints a chairman. The Committee of Selection then
nominates Members to that committee in respect of that
instrument. Occasionally the Speaker will allocate a
group of related instruments to the same committee to
enable them to be considered together. Under S.O. No.
118(5), the standing committee considers the instrument
on the motion 'That the committee has considered [the
said] instrument'. The committee cannot consider any
other form of motion (other than a dilatory motion) nor
are any amendments admissible. In respect of instruments
subject to approval, the motion is moved by a Minister.
In the case of instruments subject to some form of
negative procedure the motion will be moved by an
opposition front bench spokesman, or by another Member
who initiated the motion to annul or otherwise
disapprove of the instrument.
The
standing order requires the Chairman to put the Question
on the motion one and a half hours after debate has
commenced. If the committee is considering several
instruments as a group, the Chairman first ascertains if
the committee is content to debate them together. If no
Member dissents, the debate may range over all the
instruments before the committee. At the end of the
ninety minutes, the Chairman will interrupt the debate
if it is still continuing and put the Question on the
motion relating to the first instrument, and then
successively put forthwith the Questions on any
remaining instruments if they are moved. If any Member
of the committee objects, at the outset, to debating the
group of instruments together, they must be debated
separately, and the time limit of an hour and a half
will apply to each debate on each instrument. The time
limit is extended to two and a half hours for an
instrument relating exclusively to Northern Ireland.
When
the debate is concluded, the committee may vote on the
motion that the committee has considered the instrument.
The government always vote for the motion, even if it
has been moved by the opposition. However, whatever the
result of any division, it makes no procedural
difference since the chairman is required, under S.O.
No. 118(5), simply to report the instrument to the
House. An entry is made in the Votes and Proceedings
recording this report. Once this report has been made, a
motion may be moved in the House relating to the
instrument and it is decided without further debate.
European
Standing Committees
There
are three European standing committees established under
S.O. No. 119(1) to consider such documents as are
referred to them by the European Legislation Committee
(see paragraphs 15.2.2 to 15.2.4 above). They are called
'A', 'B' and 'C'. Their remits relate to the
responsibilities of different government departments.
Each committee has thirteen Members appointed by the
Committee of Selection. Uniquely amongst standing
committees, these Members are appointed for a whole
session rather than ad hoc. The quorum of the committees
is specified as three by paragraph (4) of S.O. No. 118,
which also specifically excludes the chairman from
counting towards this. The chairman for each sitting is
appointed ad hoc by the Speaker from amongst the
Chairmen's Panel (see above). As with delegated
legislation committees, any Member of the House may
attend a sitting of a European standing committee and
participate in its proceedings (including the moving of
amendments), but cannot vote and does not count towards
the quorum.
The
government decides the order in which documents referred
by the European Legislation Committee (see below) to
each standing committee will be considered. The sitting
of the committee to consider the motion begins with a
brief opening statement by the Minister in whose name
the motion stands lasting up to about ten minutes. This
is intended to be largely explanatory. At the conclusion
of the statement, Members attending the committee
(whether or not members of the committee) may ask
questions of the Minister. No notice is given of the
questions. Members are called in the order determined by
the chairman, and may be called more than once. The
period of questioning may continue for up to an hour
after the commencement of the Minister's statement. At
the conclusion of question time the chairman will
announce his or her selection of any amendments that
have been proposed to the motion before the committee
and will invite the Minister to move the motion on the
Notice Paper. More often than not, Ministers choose to
do his formally by simply saying 'I beg to move' or
whatever, and reserve their opportunity to speak to the
end of the debate. Only a Minister may move a motion.
The chairman usually then calls the opposition front
bench spokesperson to speak, and he or she may move an
amendment to the motion if one has been tabled and it
has been selected. However, any Member may move an
amendment, if it is selected. Debate then follows, and
may continue for the period up to the end of two and a
half hours from the beginning of the committees' sitting
(that is one and a half hours after the end of question,
if those occupied the full hour available).
At
the conclusion of debate, or when the two and a half
hours has passed the chairman puts the Question on any
amendment that has been moved and, when that is disposed
of, on the motion (as amended or not as the case may
be). Under paragraph (8) of the standing order the
chairman then reports the resolution as agreed by the
committee to the House. If the motion is negatived, the
chairman reports that the committee has come to no
resolution. These reports (including the text of any
resolution agreed) appear in the Votes and Proceedings
for that day. Paragraph (9) of S.O. No. 119 provides
that, once the chairman has reported the conclusions of
a European standing committee on any documents, a motion
relating to those documents may be moved in the House
and the Question on it be put forthwith, without further
debate. These motions will appear on the Order Paper on
a day of the government's choosing. On occasions they
have been placed on the Order Paper on the same day that
a committee is to consider the documents referred to on
the presumption that the committee will complete its
consideration. The standing order requires only that
such a motion should relate to the same documents that a
committee has considered, not that the motion must be in
the same terms as any resolution reported from the
committee. Generally it is in the same terms as the
committee's resolution, but occasionally it is not. The
standing order also provides for an amendment to such a
motion to be moved, if selected, and for the Question on
any such amendment to be put forthwith before the
Question on the motion (amended or not) is put
forthwith, and these Questions may be decided after the
moment of interruption. Once the House has voted on a
motion on documents considered by one of the standing
committees, the scrutiny process complete, and Ministers
are free to cast their votes on the relevant proposals
in the Council of Ministers.
The
Grand Committees, etc.
There
are three standing committees of the House which now
have the title of 'grand' committee. The oldest is the
Scottish Grand Committee which has been in existence for
over a century. The Welsh Grand Committee has existed
since 1968. There has been a Northern Ireland Standing
Committee since 1975, after the suspension of the
Northern Ireland Parliament, and its title was changed
to the Northern Ireland Grand Committee after the
establishment of a Northern Ireland Select Committee in
1994. They all share the essential characteristic that
all Members sitting for constituencies in the relevant
countries are automatically Members of the appropriate
grand committee. In the case of the Welsh and Northern
Ireland committees there is provision for the Committee
of Selection to appoint additional Members. The
procedures of the Scottish Grand Committees were very
substantially revamped in 1994, those of the Welsh Grand
in 1996, and those of the Northern Ireland Grand just
before the general election in 1997. These include: the
power to hear ministerial statements and take oral
questions, to hold adjournment debates and to consider
certain stages of bills and items of delegated
legislation. However, all these functions a likely to be
reviewed following devolution.
The
Regional Affairs Committee
S.O.
No. 117 provides for a Standing Committee on Regional
Affairs of which all 529 Members sitting for English
constituencies are automatically members. It is
therefore somewhat in the nature of an English Grand
Committee. It has not met since 1978, but there are
proposals under consideration for its revival.
Rules
of Debate
The
rules of debate in the three grand committees are
largely the same as for the House, and the chairmen have
the same powers as those enjoyed by chairmen of other
standing committees.
Chairmen
of the Grand Committees
The
chairmen of the grand committees are appointed for each
of their sittings from among the members of the
Chairmen's Panel in the same way as the chairmen of
other standing committees (see above)
Select
Committees
General
When
referring loosely to the 'select committees' of the
House, commentators more often than not mean the
departmentally-related select committees. Each of the 16
departmentally-related select committees appointed under
S.O. No. 152 is required by the standing order to
consider the 'expenditure, administration and policy' of
a government department or departments or offices and
their 'associated public bodies'. The term 'associated
public bodies' covers a wide range of organisations from
the NHS to the Forestry Commission and includes the
offices of the various regulators of the national
utilities. The Home Affairs Committee covers the Lord
Chancellor's Department, the Attorney General's Office,
the Treasury Solicitor's Department, the Crown
Prosecution Service and the Serious Fraud Office as well
as the Home Office. The Scottish Affairs Committee and
the Northern Ireland Committee have analogous
responsibilities for legal and criminal justice matters
as well as for the work of their main departments in
those parts of the UK. The Science and Technology
Committee monitors the Office of Science and Technology
for which the President of the Board of Trade is
currently responsible.
The
Education and Employment, Environment, Transport and
Regional Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs and
Treasury Committees each have the power to appoint
sub-committees, which they do not all exercise.
Staff
Each
departmental select committee is assisted by a clerk,
and usually an assistant clerk. In addition there may be
specialist assistants appointed on contracts of up to
four years' duration to assist the committee. Some of
these are on secondment from the National Audit Office.
Each committee will also be assisted by a committee
assistant and a secretary. Under S.O. No. 152(4)(b), the
committees each have the power to appoint expert
specialist advisors to assist them in their work. These
are often academics, but may be drawn from other walks
of life. They are retained on an ad hoc basis and paid
for each day worked for the committee. In terms of
access to the committees' papers and meetings, they are
treated equally with the permanent staff of the
committees and bound by the same duties of
confidentially and impartiality in relation to the
inquiries on which they are employed. The different
committees make widely different use of this power.
Inquiries
and Reports
The
committees set their own agenda within the very broad
limits of the terms of the standing order. The extent to
which each concentrates on expenditure or administration
or policy varies widely from committee to committee.
Most, however, make it their business to give at least
some consideration each year to the relevant department
spending plans. The committees produce reports at widely
different rates: some will produce a dozen in a session;
others only one. When publishing their reports, most
committees nowadays choose to hold a press conference to
provide an opportunity for representatives of the
various media to ask questions on their report.
In
March the departmental annual expenditure plans reports
are published, which set out the spending plans of each
department for the current and next three financial
years programme by programme, and give details of the
purposes of the spending and measures of the achievement
of these objectives. They also review outturn figures
for previous years. The Treasury produces a synoptic
volume relating to these spending plans. There are other
reports produced as part of the annual financial
reporting cycle to Parliament, including retrospective
reports on the previous financial year's performance
against objectives published in the autumn. These annual
reports are generally the subject of annual inquiries by
each of the departmental select committees, though the
level of detail of such inquiries varies widely between
committees and from year to year. The Treasury Select
Committee invariably conducts a separate annual inquiry
on the Budget.
The
reports, as well as analysis of the evidence received,
generally include a number of recommendations, most of
which will be directed to the government. The government
has undertaken to respond to a select committee's report
(and particularly to its recommendations) within two
months of the date of publication. These responses will
be made either in the form of a Command Paper or in a
memorandum to the committee which may be published by
the committee under cover of a special report.
Travel
The
departmental committees tend to take the most advantage,
amongst those select committees which are given by the
House the power to travel, of their opportunity. There
is no restriction on travel within the United Kingdom
provided it is undertaken by a quorum of the committee.
General
Powers of Select Committees
Meetings
Select
Committees may meet on any day of their choice (whether
the House is sitting or not) and may meet anywhere in
the UK. Under S.O. No. 124, a select committee cannot
proceed unless a quorum of its members is present.
Unlike most standing committees, there is not a fixed
rule for calculating the quorum as proportion of total
membership: it will be specified either in the relevant
standing order or in the order establishing the
committee.
Under
S.O. No. 125, select committees may choose to admit the
public to their meetings during the examination of
witnesses. In general they all do this as a matter of
course, although they may occasionally resolve to take
evidence in private. They have no power, however, to
admit the public to their meetings at other times and
they must conduct all their deliberations in private.
The public meetings of select committees are
characterised by a degree of informality. Members
address each other by name, rather than constituency.
They are not called to speak by the chairman, though the
chairman must exercise some degree of control. They
remain seated throughout the proceedings, and confine
themselves to asking questions rather than making
speeches of a debating nature.
This
relative informality and inquisitorial nature of the
committees' public proceedings are reflected in the
nature of the rooms in which they meet. The Members are
arranged around a horseshoe-shaped table, not in the
government opposite opposition arrangement of the House
or standing committees. The witnesses who are being
examined sit at a table at the open end of the
horseshoe, and answer questions addressed to them by
individual Members. Any Member of the House may, in
theory, attend the private deliberative meetings of a
select committee. In practice, this would be considered
most unusual unless done at the invitation of the
committee. S.O. No. 126 gives select committees power to
direct any Member who is not a member of the committee
to withdraw from its private meetings, and empowers the
Serjeant at Arms, if requested by a committee to do so,
to enforce such a direction. The Committee may also
exchange evidence and hold concurrent meetings with
other select committees to examine witnesses or consider
draft reports. They cannot, however, jointly agree
reports, although various devices have been used to
circumvent this restriction.
Powers
to Compel Evidence
The
House has delegated to most select committees, under
standing orders or their order of appointment, the power
to send for 'persons, papers and records'. In effect
this grants them the power to request any person or body
to attend a meeting of the committee to give evidence
orally, to invite any person or body to submit evidence
in writing or to require any person or body to submit
specified documents to a committee. (S.O. No. 127
forbids the altering or withdrawal of any document
received by a committee without its knowledge; however a
document cannot be assumed to have been received by a
committee just because it has been sent to it.) This
power does not extend to the compulsion of Members of
either House to give oral or written evidence, except in
the case of the Committee on Standards and Privileges.
Those
requested to give oral or written evidence or to submit
documents to a committee will generally do so without
demur. If a person were to refuse a request from a
committee, it would in the first instance be for the
committee to determine how far to press the issue. If
the obstruction continued after the committee had agreed
a resolution requesting attendance or evidence which had
been communicated to the relevant person, the committee
could seek to move a motion on the floor of the House in
support of its demand. Were that agreed, continued
obstruction would be a contempt of the House. Where a
committee requests the attendance of witnesses from a
government department, it is for the Minister in charge
of the department to decide whether to attend in person
or to send another Minister, or which officials to send
to represent the department. The question of whether a
committee can demand the attendance of named civil
servants is something of a grey area although a previous
head of the Civil Service has accepted the principle.
Evidence
given to a committee of the House is privileged, that is
to say, in most circumstances those giving it are
protected from action for defamation or other civil
action in respect of their evidence. This protection is
rather more clear cut for oral evidence than it is for
written evidence. It is a contempt of the House to
attempt to intimidate, suborn or otherwise improperly
influence a witness before a committee of the House. It
is also a contempt of the House to deliberately mislead
or lie to one of its committees. Under S.O. No. 132,
witnesses may be required to take an oath or make an
affirmation before giving evidence. This is a rare
procedure, though the Committee on Standards and
Privileges has announced that it intends in the future
to require witnesses before it to take the oath. Were a
witness before a committee refuses to answer questions,
it would again be for the committee to decide how far to
press the matter.
Making
Reports
S.O.
No. 133 empowers committees to report their opinions and
observations on any matter within their terms of
reference. This power is frequently exercised, and may
indeed be described as the raison d'ętre of select
committees. Where a committee wishes to draw the
attention of the House to a specific matter or some
procedural matter which has arisen in the course of
their work, they may make a special report to the House
on the subject. A special report may also be used to
publish a government reply to a committee's report.
The
process for agreeing a report is typically as follows. A
committee may first discuss the general lines of the
proposed report and its broad conclusions. The chairman
will subsequently produce (with the assistance of the
committee's staff) a preliminary draft report for the
committee's consideration. This may be informally
considered at one or more meetings, and the chairman may
agree informally to amend it in line with the perceived
consensus on the committee. Subsequently the chairman
will present formally his or her draft report, and the
committee agrees to consider it 'paragraph by
paragraph'. The procedure is broadly parallel to the
clause by clause consideration of a bill in standing
committee: amendments may be proposed to a paragraph,
debated, agreed, withdrawn or negatived and the
paragraph (amended or not) agreed to as a whole. No
notice is required of amendments and the chairman has no
formal power of selection. At the conclusion of the
paragraph by paragraph consideration the committee will
decide whether to agree the report as a whole, and if it
is agreed, the chairman will be directed to report it to
the House, together with associated documents, if any.
When
a report has been agreed the Chairman is ordered to
report it to the House and this is done by way of a
'book entry' in the Votes and Proceedings and the House
orders it to be printed. There is usually a gap of some
days, or even weeks, between a report being recorded as
laid before the House in the Votes and Proceedings and
its being published. The report will in due course be
published, together with the Minutes of Proceedings
relating to the report which will indicate where
amendments were made to the draft report (if any) and in
some circumstances by whom, and record any divisions the
committee may have had at any stage. S.O.No. 134 permits
the clerk of
a committee to arrange for embargoed copies of a
committee's report to be supplied to government
departments, witnesses and the press up to 48 hours in
advance of the official publication date.
It
is prima facie a contempt of the House to publish the
contents of a committee's report before it has been
reported to the House: to publish them between the date
of their being reported to the House and their
publication by the committee is a gross discourtesy. It
is for a committee to decide what action to take in the
event of such a breach of confidence. If the committee
believes a contempt has been committed which has caused
substantial interference in its work, it may cause the
matter to be referred to the Committee on Standards and
Privileges by making a special report to the House
setting out the circumstances of the disclosure and the
steps it has taken to investigate them. A similar course
might be taken if a committee believed that a witness
had committed some contempt.
Under
S.O.No. 135(1), each select committee has power to
publish its oral and written evidence. These
publications are known as the Minutes of Evidence. The
committees invariably exercise this power. Oral evidence
may be published in
'daily parts' relating to an inquiry. These will
include the transcript of the oral examination of
witnesses at one sitting together with their written
evidence (and perhaps other relevant written evidence).
These daily parts are usually published some time after
the evidence was taken. Some committees choose not to
publish these daily parts but to publish a collected
volume of evidence along with their eventual report. On
occasions, committees will take evidence without
intending to publish a report arising from that
evidence. Reports and evidence are published on the
internet, with free access.
Items
of written evidence submitted to a committee's inquiry
are known as Memoranda, and these may be published as
appendices to the Minutes of Evidence. Committees may
also publish self-standing volumes of written evidence
during the course of an inquiry, or may reserve their
publication to an evidence volume published together
with the relevant report. A committee may choose not to
publish all the memoranda submitted in the course of an
inquiry but in some cases only to report them to the
House. They are then made available for inspection in
the Library by Members and in the Record Office of the
Lords by the general public.
Under
S.O.No. 137, a committee may on its own account, when
the House is not sitting (but not during prorogations or
dissolutions), direct that any report or minutes of oral
or written evidence should be published. Such evidence
or reports are deemed to have been ordered to be printed
by the House. Under S.O.No. 135(2), the Speaker may
authorise the publication of evidence taken by a
committee which no longer exists. At the end of each
session, each select committee publishes a volume of its
Minutes of Proceedings, which record the formal
decisions made by the committee in its private meetings.
The
Committee of Public Accounts and the National Audit
Office
Under
S.O.No. 148 there is a select committee appointed called
the Committee of Public Accounts, better known as the
Public Accounts Committee or PAC. The Committee consists
of a maximum of fifteen Members and has a quorum of
four. The Chairman is invariably elected from amongst
the opposition Members. The Financial Secretary to the
Treasury is by tradition appointed to the Committee as a
member, but he does not take an active part in its
proceedings.
Powers
The
Committee has most of the usual powers of select
committees (see above). However, it may only sit on days
when the House sits, and rarely exercises its power to
travel. It does not have the power to appoint specialist
advisers.
Functions
The
Committee is charged by the standing order to examine
the Appropriation Accounts and such other accounts as it
considers fit. The Appropriation Accounts, which are
laid before Parliament by the Comptroller & Auditor
General, represent the audit of the spending by
departments to ensure that it has been in accordance
with the appropriations voted by the Commons in
approving the Appropriation Act. These are published
around eighteen months after the end of the financial
year to which they relate. The Public Accounts Committee
also has special responsibilities in relation to Excess
Votes under S.O.No.55 (3) (C).Until 1983, the
Committee's main function was the retrospective
examination of the spending of departments to ensure
propriety and (to a lesser extent) efficiency in that
spending. Since the passing of the National Audit Act of
1983, an increasing proportion of the Committee's work
has involved inquiries based upon the value for money (VFM)
reports of the Comptroller & Auditor General which
take a more prospective view of selected programmes or
areas of public expenditure and pay particular regard to
the questions of economy, efficiency and effectiveness
in spending by departments. It may not enter into
questions of policy.
The
Comptroller & Auditor General
The
Committee is assisted in its work by the Comptroller
& Auditor General (the C&AG), who is an officer
of the House. Under the 1983 Act he or she is appointed
by a motion moved jointly in the House by the Prime
Minister and the Chairman of the PAC. The C&AG is
the head of the National Audit Office. The statutory
independence from government of the C&AG is
emphasised by he or she being an officer of the House.
Accounting
Officers
For
each Vote there must be an accounting officer, as
provided for under the Exchequer and Audit Departments
Act 1866. This is more often than not the Permanent
Secretary of the department responsible for the spending
in question, though other persons (such as the Clerk of
the House or the chief executive of an executive agency)
may be the accounting officers for certain Votes. These
accounting officers are responsible to Parliament,
through the NAO and the PAC, for the proper use of
public money. Although the Committee has the general
power to send for persons, papers and records, it is
usually accounting officers who are summoned to give
evidence to the PAC. It is the accounting officers who
are under a personal statutory duty to ensure that
Ministers act in accordance with the decisions of
Parliament in relation to public expenditure.
Reports
of the Committee
Like
other select committees, the PAC makes regular reports
to the House on its findings and may make
recommendations. The government responds to these
reports by way of Treasury Minutes. A selection of these
reports and government replies are subject to an annual
day's debate in government time.
The
National Audit Office
The
National Audit Office (NAO) has about 700 staff under
the direction of the C&AG, of whom some 450 hold
accounting qualifications. The C&AG is in turn
answerable for the management of the NAO to the Public
Accounts Commission, established under the National
Audit Act 1983. This consists of the Chairman of the
PAC, the Leader of the House and seven other Members.
One of these other Members is elected chairman and,
among other duties, is responsible for answering
parliamentary questions on the work of the Commission.
The Public Accounts Commission is responsible for the
general financial oversight of the NAO and in particular
for agreeing the Estimate to be presented each year to
Parliament for its expenditure.
The
NAO works under the direction of the C&AG. In
addition to preparing the Appropriation Accounts (see
above) and other related audit work, it prepares the
C&AG's value for money (VFM) report on the spending
of departments. The VFM reports are laid before
Parliament by the C&AG. Most of them will be
followed up by the PAC, which will conduct its own
inquiry on the basis of the report, taking evidence from
the relevant accounting officer. The Committee will then
publish its own report on the subject, making such
recommendations as it considers appropriate. The cycle
is completed by the publication of the government's
response, issued as a Treasury Minute.
The
Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments
S.O.
No. 151 provides for a select committee to be appointed
to join with a committee of the Lords to consider
statutory instruments, known as the Joint Committee on
Statutory Instruments (JCSI). It is required to consider
not only every instrument laid before the House but also
all other 'general' instruments. A general instrument,
broadly defined, is one that relates to the general law
rather than being of local application. Excluded from
their remit are Orders in Council made under the
Northern Ireland Act 1974, draft Deregulation Orders
(see below), and Church of England Measures.
The
Committee is required to examine each instrument against
criteria set out in the standing order. Broadly, these
are: whether it includes provisions incurring public
expenditure or taxation (that is of a type covered by
the rules relating to financial resolutions); whether it
is protected by the parent Act against legal challenge;
whether it is to have retrospective effect; whether it
has been laid before Parliament in good time; whether it
is properly within the powers conferred by the parent
Act; and whether it is unclear or defectively drafted.
The Committee is not empowered to consider the merits of
the proposals embodied in an instrument.
The
Committee is assisted in its work by the Speaker's
Counsel and their Lords equivalents. It has the power to
require departments to submit explanatory memoranda, and
to require witnesses to give oral evidence about matters
within its competence. It may also take evidence from
HMSO about the printing and publication of instruments.
Periodically the Committee produces reports listing the
instruments it has considered and drawing the special
attention of the House to any instruments which raise
questions within its terms of reference. Where it
proposes to draw the special attention of the House to
an instrument, it is required to give the relevant
department an opportunity to give an explanation.
Sometimes the department will withdraw an instrument
with which the Committee has found fault and re-lay it
in an amended form to meet the Committee's objections,
or more often it will undertake to take note of the
Committee's comments in drafting future instruments of
the same type.
Under
paragraph (10) of the standing order, the select
committee (that is, the Commons Members of the JCSI
only) considers separately those instruments which are
required to be laid only before the Commons. These are
generally those relating to taxation or other matters
falling within the Commons' financial privileges.
The
Deregulation Committee
Statutory
Basis
Section
1 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 gives
Ministers powers to make a new form of delegated
legislation known as deregulation orders. Section 3 of
the 1994 Act requires the Minister to undertake certain
specified forms of consultation in respect of any
proposals to make deregulation orders. It also requires
him or her to lay a proposal for such an order before
Parliament in the form of a draft order together with
details of the consultations undertaken and other
specified matters. The section also requires the
Minister, before proceeding to lay the actual draft
order before Parliament, to take account of any report
published by the appropriate committee of either House
on the proposal.
Section
4 of the Act requires that a period or 60 calendar days
(excluding periods when Parliament is prorogued or
dissolved or when either House is adjourned for a
continuous period of more than four days) must have
elapsed after the draft proposal has been laid before
Parliament before the Minister may lay the actual draft
order before Parliament for its approval.
Functions
of the Deregulation Committee
It
is during this period of 60 days between the laying of a
proposal for a deregulation order before Parliament and
the laying of the draft deregulation order before
Parliament that the Deregulation Committee does its
work. S. O. No. 141 provides for a select committee of
eighteen Members, called the Deregulation Committee, to
examine each proposal for a deregulation order laid
before Parliament by a Minister. The Committee has
broadly the same powers as other select committees, as
described above, these being: to require written
evidence and examine witnesses, to employ specialist
advisers, to appoint a sub-committee, to communicate
with other committees (including Lords committees
examining deregulation orders), to travel (within the
United Kingdom only) and to make reports. It also has
the right (shared with the Joint Committee on Statutory
Instruments and the European Legislation Committee) to
use the Services of the Speaker's Counsel and their
Lords equivalents. It also has the unique power to
invite other Members of the House to participate in the
examination of witnesses.
The
Committee considers each proposal laid before Parliament
under section 3 of the 1994 Act. It may, if it so
chooses, take written or oral evidence on the proposal,
and it may report to the House its conclusions on 'any
matter arising' from its consideration. It is required,
by paragraph (5)(A) of the standing order to consider
each proposal against specific tests. These include
those questions of whether it represents an appropriate
use of delegated powers and whether it is intra vires,
matters of public expenditure and taxation, and
questions of retrospective effect and doubtful
drafting which the joint committee on statutory
instruments is required to take into account when
examining other types of instrument (see above). In
addition, the Deregulation Committee is required to
consider whether, in accordance with the Act, the
proposal is designed to 'remove a burden' and also to
continue any necessary protection; whether the proposal
is likely to conflict with European law; and whether the
consultations on the proposals have been properly
conducted.
Under
paragraph (13) of the standing order, the Committee is
required, if it intends in its report on a proposal to
recommend that the proposal be amended or not proceeded
with, to give the relevant government department an
opportunity to present its defence. After the end of the
period of 60 days referred to above (usually not less
than a week after that period has ended), during which
time the Deregulation Committee is likely to have made
its report on the proposal, the Minister may lay the
draft deregulation order before Parliament. The draft
order may take account of any criticisms of the proposal
made by the Deregulation Committee. The Act requires the
Minister to lay a statement with the draft Order giving
details of the report made by the Committee (and its
counterpart in the Lords) and any other representations
received during those 60 days, and the changes, if any,
made to the proposal in the light of these.
Paragraph
(14) of S.O.No141 requires the Deregulation Committee
then to report to the House, within fifteen sitting days
of a draft deregulation order being laid, whether the
Committee recommends that the draft order ought, or
ought not, to be approved. Under the standing order, the
Committee is required to consider how the Minister has
responded to its report on the proposal, and what
response the Minister has made to any other
representations received during the 60 day period. The
Committee is again required to afford an opportunity to
the department to present a defence if it proposes to
report that a draft order should not be approved. A
report of the Committee's resolution is printed in the
Votes and Proceedings, together with a note (in the case
of a recommendation to approve the order) as to whether
or not the Committee is divided on the recommendation.
Proceedings
on Deregulation Orders
After
the Committee and its Lords counterpart have each made
their report, a Minister may move a motion to approve
the draft deregulation order on the floor of the House.
Under S.O.No. 18(1), if the Committee recommended
approval of the draft order without a division, the
Question on the motion to approve the draft order is put
forthwith. If the Committee divided on the
recommendation to approve the order, debate on the
motion to approve the draft order may continue for one
and a half hours, after which the Question must be put.
Under
S.O.No. 18(2), if the Committee recommended that the
draft deregulation order ought not to be approved, a
motion to approve the draft order cannot be moved before
the House has resolved to disagree with the Committee's
recommendation. Debate on a motion to disagree with the
Committee's recommendation may continue for three hours,
at the end of which the Question must be put. If the
House does resolve to disagree with the Committee, the
Question on the motion to approve the draft order may
then be put forthwith. Under paragraph (3) of S.O. No.
18, proceedings on all such motions relating to draft
deregulation orders may be taken after the moment of
interruption.
The
European Scrutiny Committee
Under
S.O. NO. 143, a select committee of sixteen Members,
known as the European Scrutiny Committee, is appointed
to consider all European Union documents. The Committee
has the usual powers of a select committee (see above)
including: to require the submission of written evidence
and to examine witnesses; to make reports; to obtain
specialist advice; to travel; to appoint sub-committees;
and to sit on days when the House is not meeting. It may
meet concurrently with other select committees. It is
traditionally chaired by an opposition Member. The
Committee also has the right
(like the Joint Committee on Statutory
Instruments and the Deregulation Committee) to the
assistance of Speaker's Counsel. In addition to the
normal complement of select committee staff, the
Committee is also served by clerk Advisers (usually
former civil servants) who assist in the expert scrutiny
of the very large volume of paper it is required by the
House to consider.
With
the assistance of its staff, the Committee sifts through
the documents received. It is required by S.O. NO. 143
to report its opinion on the legal and political
importance of each document and to make recommendations
as to which should be further considered by the House.
Around two-thirds of the documents on average are
considered by the Committee to be insignificant in legal
and political terms and they take no further action. In
respect of the remainder, they may take three courses of
action. First, they may report the issues a document
raises but recommend no further action. Second, they may
refer the document for debate by one of the two European
standing committees (see above). Third, they may
recommend that the document be debated on the floor of
the House. They may also refer a document to one of the
departmental select committees (see above) for
consideration.
The
reference by the Committee of a document to a European
Standing Committee is binding. Such references are noted
by means of a memorandum in the Votes and Proceedings. A
further recommendation that a document ought to be
debated on the floor of the House is advisory. A motion
to de-refer the document from one of the standing
committees, so making it available for debate on the
floor can only, under S.O. NO. 119(2) be moved by a
Minister. Such a motion is taken at the commencement of
public business and the Question on it is put forthwith.
The
Committee on Standards and Privileges
Until
1996, the House appointed a select committee of senior
Members known as the Committee of Privileges which
considered allegations of breaches of privilege or
contempt and reported to the House its conclusions and
recommendations in particular cases. From 1974 to 1996
there was also a select committee called the Committee
on Members' Interests which had oversight of the
maintenance of the Register of Member' Interests and
investigated complaints concerning the declarations made
in it. As part of the changes adopted by the House in
response of the recommendations of the Committee on
Standards in Public Life (the Nolan Committee), these
committees were replaced, under S.O. NO. 149, by the
Committee on Standards and Privileges which has the dual
role of guardian of the House's privileges and custodian
of the standards of conduct of Members of the House. The
Committee has eleven Members (with a quorum of five )
and has the power to consider complaints relating to
privilege and contempts, to oversee the work of the
Commissioner for Standards, and to consider complaints
(with the assistance of the Commissioner) relating to
breaches of the Code of Conduct.
The
Committee has power to appoint sub-committees of up to
seven Members (with a quorum of three). The standing
order implies that it is required to establish one such
sub-committee for the investigation of specific
complaints about Members' conduct made to the
Commissioner , but so far these matters have been
considered by the Committee itself. The Committee has
the usual powers of a select committee (see
above).However, in addition to these usual powers, the
Committee has two unique powers under S.O. NO. 149.
Under paragraph (6) of the standing order it can
order the attendance of a Member of the House to
give oral evidence and it can require a Member to submit
documents in his or her possession. Under Paragraph (7)
of the standing order it has power to refuse to allow
the broadcast of its public meetings. Under paragraph
(8) of the standing order , the Law Officers of the
government who are Members of the House may attend
meetings of the Committee and participate in its
deliberations.
The
Public Administration and Environ- mental Audit
Committees
Characteristics
of the Committees
In
addition to the departmental select committees described
above, and the other types of select committee described
elsewhere, there are two further select committees
established under the standing orders of the House which
do not fit easily into any category- the Public
Administration Committee and the Environmental Audit
Committee. In character these are much like the
departmental committees but, like the Committee of
Public Accounts, each has a remit which cuts across
departmental boundaries and covers aspects of almost all
the departments' work.
The
Parliamentary Commissioners
Under
the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967, a Parliamentary
Commissioner for Administration (Colloquially known as
the Ombudsman) is appointed with extensive powers to
enquire into complaints of maladministration
leading to injustice. The Commissioner can
investigate complaints against government departments
and other public bodies listed in Schedule 2 to the Act
and may recommend remedies, including compensation. The
Commissioner also has responsibilities in relation to
the operation of
the government's code on access to official information.
This may change under the proposed Freedom of
Information Act. The Commissioner is an officer of the
House and makes reports of his findings to Parliament.
Under
Acts of 1972 and 1973, similar Commissioners were
created to investigate complaints of maladministration
by NHS bodies. There are separate Health Service
Commissioners for England, Scotland and Wales, but all
these posts are currently held by the Parliamentary
Commissioner for Administration. This is likely to
change following devolution. An Ombudsman with similar
powers and duties is appointed for Northern Ireland.
This post is likely to come within the remit of the
Northern Ireland Assembly after devolution.
The
Public Administration Committee
Under
S.O.NO. 146, a select committee of eleven Members (with
a quorum of three) is appointed to oversee the work of
the Commissioners. It is known as the Select Committee
on Public Administration. The Committee has also been
given the power, from July 1997, to 'consider matters
relating to the civil service departments, and other
matters relating to the quality and standards of
administration provided by civil service', a task which
was undertaken in previous Parliaments successively by
the Civil Service sub-committee of the Treasury
Committee and the former Public Services Select
Committee. The Committee has the normal powers of select
committees.
The
Committee's usual mode of proceeding has been to select
from the Commissioner's reports examples of cases which
they believe should be pursued. They may examine
relevant witnesses and take written evidence, and make
reports and recommendations. They have given particular
attention to the annual reports and special reports of
the Commissioner. They also, on occasion, have
investigated general issues which have emerged from a
number of the Commissioner's reports.
The
Committee has also periodically undertaken wider-ranging
inquiries into the general powers and functioning of the
Commissioners and its own role, and made reports
including recommendations for change. The discharge of
its wider functions in relation to the public service
has taken a fair portion of its time in this Parliament,
and it has produced a number of reports on civil service
issues.
The
Environmental Audit Committee
In
November 1997, the House agreed to a new standing order
(NO. 152A) establishing a new Committee, called the
Environmental Audit Committee. It has fifteen members,
and its remit is 'to consider to what extent the
policies and programmes of government departments and
non-departmental public bodies [ie Quangos, nationalised
industries, etc]contribute to environmental protection
and sustainable development; and to audit their
performance against such targets as may be set for them
by Her Majesty's Ministers'. The Committee has
considered the Budget in relation to its environmental
implications, has looked at the coordination of
government policies in this area and has considered more
specific aspects of environmental protection and
sustainable development from a cross-departmental
perspective. The Committee has all the usual powers of a
departmental select committee to require evidence, to
travel, meet when the House is not sitting and to sit
away from Westminster and to appoint specialist
advisers.
The
Procedure and Modernisation Committees
There
are two Committees currently appointed to examine the
working of the House. The Procedure Committee (appointed
under S.O.NO. 147) is a permanent Committee. It makes
recommendations on a wide variety of issues relating to
the procedures of the House, from financial procedure or
the impact of devolution to the use of the Welsh
Language in proceedings of the Welsh Grand Committee.
The
Modernisation Committee was appointed in 1997 for this
Parliament. It is unusual in being chaired by a Minister
(the Leader of the House) and having opposition front
benchers on it (as well as back benchers). It has made
wide ranging proposal for the modernisation of the
House's procedures on subjects ranging from reform of
the legislative process to the creation of the proposed
parallel Chamber.
The
Domestic Committees, etc.
The
House of Commons Commission
The
House is responsible for the management of its own
estate, the employment of its own staff, the provision
of services to the House and its committees, the
broadcasting of its own proceedings and the payment of
Members' salaries and expenses. The funding of the costs
of all these services (except Members' salaries and
expenses which are carried on the Cabinet Office Votes)
are authorised by annual Estimates, which are divided
into two votes, one for 'administration' and one for
'works'. The corporate body with overall responsibility
for submitting these estimates to the House, and for the
general oversight of the running
of the House,
is the House of Commons Commission established under the
House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978. It is
chaired by the Speaker, and the other members are the
Leader of the House, the shadow leader of the House and
three back bench Members (one of whom is by tradition a
Member from the third largest party in the House). The
Commission is also the statutory employer of the
permanent staff of the House. The administrative
discharge of this function is delegated to the Board of
Management.
Finance
and Services Committee
I
n its role as the corporate executive of the House, the
Commission is advised by a select committee, appointed
under S.O. NO. 144, called the Finance and Services
Committee. This Committee of eleven Members has the task
of considering expenditure on the various services
of the House. In effect it considers claims for
new areas of expenditure and monitors the expenditure on
the running costs of the House and prepare the estimates
for the House of Commons (Administration) and (Works).
The committee is assisted by the Board of Management and
the other officers of the House. It is also advised by
the four domestic committees appointed under S.O.No.142.
The chairman of each of the domestic committees is a
member of the Finance and Services Committee.
The
Domestic Committees
Under
S.O.NO. 142, there are four select committees known as
the domestic committees. These are:
·
Accommodation and Works
·
Administration
·
Catering
·
Information
Each
committee has nine members. They have the usual powers
of select committees. They also have the power to hold
concurrent meetings with any other domestic committee or
the Finance and Services Committee, or with their
equivalents in the House of Lords. The committees'
function is to advise the Commission and the Speaker on
the running of the services of the House. Accommodation
and Works deals mainly with the management of the
parliamentary estate. Information is responsible for the
Library, Hansard and other publications of the House,
and for information technology services and related
matters. Administration is mostly responsible for
personnel matters and the administrative infrastructure.
Catering is self-explanatory.
Under
paragraph (7) of the standing order, the committees have
the power to give directions and make rules about
matters within their competence, with the concurrence of
the Speaker and the Commission. Generally, the
committees work closely with the heads of the relevant
department of the House to monitor and improve the
functioning of their departments and to develop existing
and new services.
The
Broadcasting Committee
Under
S.O. No. 139 there is a select committee of eleven
members known as the Broadcasting Committee. It is
responsible for general oversight of the arrangements
for the recording and broadcasting of the House's
proceedings, and its terms of reference are similar to
those of the domestic committees. The Committee also
supervises arrangements for the provision of a
continuous live audio-visual feed of the proceedings in
the Chamber. The House also maintains archives of audio
and audio-visual recordings of its proceedings. The
Committee proposes and interprets guidelines on the
broadcasting of the House's proceedings, but day to day
control is the responsibility of the Supervisor of
Broadcasting, who works closely with the Committee.
Select
Committee Chairmen
Election
Each
select committee elects its own chairman from amongst
its members. It is usually agreed in advance through the
usual channels whether the chairman is to come from
amongst the government or opposition Members. By
tradition, the Chairmen of the Public Accounts Committee
and the Joint/Select Committee on Statutory Instruments
are drawn from the opposition. Amongst the
departmentally-related committees, the chairmanships are
generally divided between government and opposition by
agreement, but these agreements may relate to different
committees at different times, and will alter according
to the balance of parties in the House.
When
a committee is first appointed, or appointed for the
first time in a new Parliament, the senior Member
amongst those appointed (that is the Member with the
longest continuous service in the House) directs the
clerk of the committee as to the date and time of its
first meeting. When the committee is convened, the
details of any declarable interests of any Member in
relation to the committee's responsibilities are
circulated. The clerk then calls a Member to move
'That…..do take the Chair of the committee'. Other
Members may be called and may move other motions
nominating other candidates. These are moved as separate
motions rather than as amendments to the first motion.
After any debate, if there is more than one candidate,
the motions are put to the vote in the order in which
they were moved. The first name to obtain a majority of
votes cast is elected chairman and immediately takes the
Chair. The Member so elected remains chairman for the
remainder of Parliament (or the existence of the
committee if shorter) unless he or she resigns from the
post or is discharged from the committee, or is instead
by a motion to rescind the earlier decision of a
committee. Occasionally, a Member may be elected to take
the chair of a committee for a specified period, after
which a chairman will again have to be elected. When a
chairman is absent from a meeting, another Member is
elected by the committee to take the chair for the
meeting.
Powers
There
is normally very little 'procedure' as such in the work
of select committees. By and large they regulate their
own proceedings in accordance with their needs. Since
their public work mostly involves the examination of
witnesses, there is no requirement for the elaborate
rules of debate which apply in the House and in standing
committees. When meeting in private, select committees
also generally proceed in an informal manner, though
formal decisions are recorded in their published Minutes
of Proceedings. The chairmen have no explicit powers
under standing orders to regulate the proceedings of the
committees and so must govern by consent. They do,
however, take a much more active role in leading the
committees, and are not under the same strict
obligations of neutrality as chairmen of standing
committees are required to observe. On the relatively
rare occasions when divisions occur in select committees
and there is a tied vote, the chairman may cast his or
her vote on the basis of personal judgement, rather than
in accordance with precedent. They do not vote except in
the event of such a tied division. Chairmen of select
committees receive no extra remuneration, allowances,
staff or facilities (other than their privileged access
to the permanent staff of the committee) in recognition
of their status.
The
Liaison Committee
Membership
The
Liaison Committee is appointed by the House under S.O.
No. 145. It is a select committee. No maximum number of
Members is specified, though a quorum of six is.
Although it is not explicitly stated in the standing
orders, the membership of the committee is in fact
comprised of the chairmen of all other select
committees.
Functions
The
Committee's terms of reference require it to consider
general matters relating to the work of select
committees. Occasionally it has produced reports on such
general matters. The Committee is also required to 'give
such advice relating to the work of select committees as
may be sought by the House of Commons Commission'. In
practice, this mostly means advice on the distribution
of the sum available for overseas travel and on other
aspects of the financing of select committees' work. The
Liaison Committee itself has no power to travel.
Recommending
Debates on Select Committee Reports
Under
paragraph (2) of S.O. No. 145 the Liaison Committee also
makes recommendations to the House as to which Estimates
should be debated on Estimates Days. Although in theory
any Member may approach the Liaison Committee with a
proposed subject for debate, in practice these Estimates
are each chosen to relate to a recent report of a
departmental select committee, the purpose being to link
the work of these committees into the House's system for
the control of public expenditure. Having reported their
recommendation to the House, a motion must, be made to
agree with it, and the Question on such a motion is put
forthwith and may be decided after the moment of
interruption. Under paragraph (1)(c) of the standing
orders, the Committee also recommends select committee
reports for debate on one of the three Wednesday
mornings set aside for this purpose under S.O. NO.
10(4). There may be debates on two reports on each of
these mornings. Although the Committee is not bound to
choose reports from the departmental committees on these
occasions, more often than not they do.
Other
Debates on Select Committee Reports
Select
committee reports may also be 'tagged' to a motion or
order taken on the floor of the House. This means that
the government (usually), at the request of a committee,
includes an italicised note on the Order Paper under a
particular item of business
stating that certain reports of select committees are
relevant to the debate. For example, for the annual
debates on the Defence Estimates and on each of the
armed forces, reports of the Defence Committee will
almost invariably be relevant. Occasionally, the
government will make time to debate a select committee
report either on an adjournment motion or a substantive
motion, but this rarely happens in cases other than
Procedure Committee reports and reports from the
domestic committees. It would be open to the opposition
parties to move a motion relating to a select committee
report on an opposition day or to tag a report on a
motion they put down, but this rarely happens. Taking
Estimates Days, Wednesday mornings and 'tagged' debates
together, roughly a quarter to a third of the reports of
the departmental select committees are debated on the
floor of the House. It is expected that the proposed new
'parallel Chamber' will devote a significant proportion
of its time to debating Select Committee reports.
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