House of Commons. We must consider here their organisation and duties. mittee of the The most important committee, the Committee of the The ComWhole, is not in this sense a committee at all. It is simply whole. the House itself acting under special forms of procedure; the chief differences being that the Chairman of Committees presides, and that the rule of the House forbidding a member to speak more than once on the same question does not apply. But the fact that a member can speak more than once makes it a real convenience for the purpose for which it is chiefly used, that is, the consideration of measures in detail, such as the discussion and amendment of the separate clauses of a bill, or the debates upon different items of appropriations. The Committee of the Whole has had a long history. It is called by different names according to the subject-matter with which it deals. For ordinary bills it is called simply the Committee of the Whole. When engaged upon appropriations it is called Committee of the Whole on Supply, or in common parlance the Committee of Supply. When providing money to meet the appropriations it is called the Committee of Ways and Means; and when reviewing the revenue accounts of India it is named from that subject. The committees of the whole called by these names are so far distinct that each of them can deal only with its own affairs, and the House must go into committee again in order to take up any other matter. But the simple Committee of the Whole can take up one bill after another which has been referred to it without reporting to the House and being reconstituted.2 mittees. Of the real committees the most numerous are the select Select Comcommittees. Their normal size is fifteen members, although they are often smaller, and occasionally, by special leave of the House, they are somewhat larger. They may be nominated from the floor, and elected by the House,* or chosen by ballot; but in order to avoid loss of time, and to Committee of Selec tion. Other Ses mittees. secure impartiality, the appointment of a part, at least, of the members is usually intrusted to the Committee of Selection. Some of the select committees are appointed regularly every year, and are therefore known as sessional committees. One of these, the Committee of Selection, has already been mentioned. It has been enlarged from time to time, and now consists of eleven members, chosen by the House itself at the beginning of the session.1 The members are, in fact, designated by an understanding between the leaders of the two great parties in the House. But the object is to create an impartial body, and so far is this object attained that in the memoir of Sir John Mowbray, who was its chairman continuously for thirty-two years, we are told that divisions in the committee are rare, and never on party lines. Its duties, so far as public business is concerned, consist in appointing members of select and standing committees. It appoints also the committees on all private and local bills, and divides those bills among them. This is, indeed, the primary object of its existence, but, together with a description of the various committees employed in private bill legislation, it must be postponed to a later chapter. It may, however, save confusion in the mind of a reader unfamiliar with parliamentary practice to insist here upon the distinction between a private member's bill and a private bill. The former is a bill of a public nature introduced by a private member, whereas a private bill is one dealing only with a matter of private, personal, or local interest. The remaining sessional committees are the Committee sional Com on Public Accounts, which goes through the report of the Auditor and Comptroller General, considers in detail objections to the legality of any expenditures by the public departments, examines witnesses thereon, and reports to the House; the Committee on Public Petitions, appointed to inspect the numerous petitions presented to the House; and 1 Standing Orders (relative to private business), 98. * Ibid., 103–15. 'S.O. 75. 'S.O. 76-80. 5 the Committee on the Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms, which has importance for the members of the House, though not for the general public.1 mittees. The other select committees are created to consider some Other Sespecial matter that is referred to them, either a bill, or a sub- lect Comject upon which the House wishes to institute an inquiry.2 In either case the chief object of the committee is to ob- Their Obtain and sift information. Even where a particular bill is ject. referred to it the primary object is not to take the place of debate in the House, and in fact by the present practice a select committee saves no step in procedure, a bill when reported by it going to the Committee of the Whole for discussion in detail, precisely as if no select committee had been appointed. Select committees are the organs, and the only organs, of the House for collecting evidence and examining witnesses; and hence they are commonly given power to send for persons, papers and records. They summon before them people whose testimony they wish to obtain; but although a man of prominence, or a recognised authority on the subject, would, no doubt, be summoned at his own request, there is nothing in their procedure in the least corresponding to the public hearings customary throughout the 4 1 "At the commencement of every session an order is made 'That a committee of privileges be appointed,' but no members have been nominated to it since 1847." "Manual of Procedure of the House of Commons," prepared in 1904 by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, Clerk of the House, § 110. There are also a couple of sessional committees whose work is wholly concerned with private bills and are described therewith. 2 The question often arises whether inquiry shall be conducted by a committee of the House, or by a commission appointed by the government. When the matter is distinctly political a committee of the House is the proper organ; but when the judgment of outside experts is needed the other alternative is obviously preferable, several members of Parliament being often included in such cases. Naturally enough, the ministry and the members chiefly interested in pushing an inquiry do not always agree about the matter. One instance of a dispute on this point has already been referred to—that in relation to the grievances of Post Office employees. Another famous example occurred upon the charges made by The Times against Parnell in connection with the forged Pigott Letters. May, 469–70. The private bill committees to be described in a later chapter are select committees. Their Procedure. Joint Committees. United States, where anybody is at liberty to attend and a practice that deserves far more attention than it has yet received. express his views 2 In select committees the procedure follows as closely as possible that of a Committee of the Whole;1 but they choose their own chairman, who has no vote except in case of a tie. They keep minutes, not only of their own proceedings, but also of all evidence taken before them; and these, together with the report of their conclusions, are laid before the House, and published among the parliamentary papers of the session. Strictly speaking, a minority report is unknown to English parliamentary usage, although the habit of placing upon select committees representatives of the various groups of opinion in the House makes a disagreement about the report very common. Practically, however, the minority attain the same object by moving a substitute for the report prepared by the majority, and as the standing orders provide that every division in a select committee must be entered upon its minutes, the substitute with the names of those who voted for it, are submitted to the House, and have the effect of a minority report. 3 The fact that men with all shades of opinions sit upon these committees, and have an opportunity to examine the witnesses, lifts their reports, and still more the evidence they collect, above the plane of mere party documents, and gives them a far greater permanent value. Many committees are not directly concerned with legislation, that is, with a bill actually pending, but only with inquiry into some grievance, some alleged defect in the law or in administration, yet their reports often lay the foundation for future statutes; and, indeed, a large part of the legislative or administrative reforms carried out by one or both of the great parties in the state, have been based upon the reports of select committees or royal commissions. From obvious motives of convenience joint select committees from the Lords and Commons have been occasionally 'May, 383-89, 471. 'S.O. 59-61, 63. S.O. 61. appointed,' but owing to the different standing of the two Houses they are used chiefly for private bills, and for regulating the intercourse between the two bodies.2 The principal exceptions of late years have been the joint committees on statute law revision bills and on the subject of municipal trading. Grand As the pressure for time in the House of Commons grew Standing or more intense, select committees that collected information Commitwere not enough. Something was needed that would save tees. debate in the House, and for this purpose resolutions were adopted on Dec. 1, 1882, for setting up two large committees on bills relating to law and to trade, whose deliberations should take the place of debate in the Committee of the Whole. Such committees were at first an experiment, tried for a couple of sessions, but in 1888 they were revived by standing orders, and made permanent organs of the House. As distinguished from select committees, which expire when they have made a report upon the special matters committed to their charge, they were made standing bodies, lasting throughout the session, and considering all the bills from time to time referred to them; one of them being created to deal with bills relating to law, courts of justice, and legal procedure; the other with those relating to trade, shipping, manufactures, agriculture, and fishing. They consist of not less than sixty nor more than eighty members of the House, appointed by the Committee of Selection, which has power to discharge members and substitute others during the course of the session. In order to secure the presence of persons who may throw light on any particular bill, the same committee can also appoint not more than fifteen additional members for the consideration of that bill. A peculiar provision was made for the designation of the Their Prochairman. At the beginning of each session the Committee cedure. of Selection appoints a chairman's panel of not less than four nor more than six members, and this body selects. 1 1 May, 398-99. 'Redlich, 463. S.O. 46-50; May, 371-77. |