Select Committees House of Commons
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•211 views
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (13)
Similar to Select Committees House of Commons
Similar to Select Committees House of Commons (20)
More from UK Parliament Outreach and Engagement Service
More from UK Parliament Outreach and Engagement Service (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Select Committees House of Commons
- 1. Commons Select Committees Mark Egan (until recently) Clerk of the Transport Committee
- 4. Composition and appointment • Membership reflects balance of parties in the House • Since 2010, Chairs elected by House- wide ballot • Other members elected by their parties
- 5. Vexing civil servants since 1668 “At the office all the morning, where comes a damned summons to attend the Committee of Miscarriages to-day, which makes me mad, that I should by my place become the hackney of this Office, in perpetual trouble and vexation, that need it least.” ~ Sam. Pepys
- 6. Overall aim To hold Ministers and Departments to account for their policy and decision- making and to support the House in its control of the supply of public money and scrutiny of legislation
- 7. Revised core tasks 1. STRATEGY: To examine the strategy of the department, how it has identified its key objectives and priorities and whether it has the means to achieve them, in terms of plans, resources, skills, capabilities and management information 2. POLICY: To examine policy proposals by the department, and areas of emerging policy, or where existing policy is deficient, and make proposals 3. EXPENDITURE AND PERFORMANCE: To examine the expenditure plans, outturn and performance of the department and its arm's length bodies, and the relationships between spending and delivery of outcomes 4. DRAFT BILLS: To conduct scrutiny of draft bills within the committee's responsibilities 5. BILLS AND DELEGATED LEGISLATION: To assist the House in its consideration of bills and statutory instruments, including draft orders under the Public Bodies Act HC 697, First Report of 2012-13, Select committee effectiveness, resources and powers, 25 October 2012
- 8. Revised core tasks 6. POST-LEGISLATIVE SCRUTINY: To examine the implementation of legislation and scrutinise the department's post- legislative assessments 7. EUROPEAN SCRUTINY: To scrutinise policy developments at the European level and EU legislative proposals 8. APPOINTMENTS: To scrutinise major appointments made by the department and to hold pre-appointment hearings where appropriate 9. SUPPORT FOR THE HOUSE: To produce timely reports to inform debate in the House, including Westminster Hall, or debating committees, and to examine petitions tabled 10.PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT: To assist the House of Commons in better engaging with the public by ensuring that the work of the committee is accessible to the public
- 9. What we do • Seek written submissions • Commission research - sometimes • Hold public “evidence” sessions • Seminars etc • Visits • Produce reports • Publish letters etc – and tweet • Initiate debates in the House & Westminster Hall
- 10. Commons Select Committees Mark Egan eganm@parliament.uk
Editor's Notes
- Different types of select committee In the Commons: Departmental (one per Government department) Other scrutiny Committees – PAC (the Environmental Audit (cross cutting); Political and Constitutional Reform; PASC; European Scrutiny; SCSI; Reg Reform Joint Committees – Joint Committee on human rights; JCSI Temporary Committees (one house or both) with specific orders of reference, e.g. to examine a draft Bill and report And there are internal Committees eg Liaison Committee, Administration Committee, Procedure Committee, Committee on Standards, Committee on Privileges, Committee of Selection (described as “a committee whose job it is to meet”) Added to which, in 2011 a new breed of Parliamentary investigatory body was established: the Parliamentary Commission. Distinguished from committees which are established by statute rather than by order of either House, and whose members are appointed or nominated by means other than by vote of that House: House of Commons Commission; Public Accounts Commission; Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission; SCIPSA; Ecclesiastical Committee; Intelligence and Security Committee. All this goes to illustrate the complexity of the select committee system in both Houses.
- Departmental select committees are appointed to scrutinise the spending, policy and administration of Government departments. They are one of the most widely known and public means by which Parliament holds Government —and, increasingly, bodies outside Government—to account
- History of select committees (briefly, main point being they did not start in 1979) The departmental select committee system is so well-established that it is often forgotten that it was set up just over thirty years ago, at the beginning of the Thatcher administration. The Leader of the House in MT’s first Cabinet, Norman St John-Stevas, is credited with proposing and driving through the establishment of the modern select committee system in 1979. Committees were appointed by the House to examine various matters as early as the reign of Charles I, and by 1668 a committee of the Commons had taken the bold step of launching an inquiry into the conduct of an entire war. The Dutch raid on the English fleet in the Medway in June 1667 was a political and military catastrophe: the flagship of the English fleet, the Royal Charles, was captured and hauled off to Amsterdam. The transom of the ship is still on display in the Rijksmuseum as a war trophy. The English swiftly sued for peace and in return got to keep a small settlement on an island off the eastern seaboard of the North American continent, then named New Amsterdam. A Committee “to inquire into the Miscarriage of Affairs in the late War” was set up by the Commons. It wanted answers, many of them from one Samuel Pepys, Clerk of the Acts of the Navy Board. It is clear from an entry in Pepys’ diary for February 1668 that the Committee, reaching the end of its investigations, had called him back once too often to answer questions on matters which had not been his responsibility. Present-day civil servants may have some sympathy with him.
- In May 2002 the Liaison Committee proposed core tasks for select committees. Designed to ensure that select committees to carry out the full range of activities currently open to them. Agreed to by the House: provide a framework for Committee activity. Updated in 2012 by Liaison Committee report on Select Committee effectiveness, resources and powers. What select Committees do not do Do not have executive authority for example, can hold a pre appointment hearing, but do not make the final decision about who will be appointed. The Government does this. Do not have a formal legislative role. In this way very different from, for example, US Congressional Committees and committees of the Scottish Parliament (Although do carry out pre-legislative scrutiny) Do not have a role in voting for or against budgetary items decisions, although they do scrutinise Departmental accounts