House of Lords Select Committees
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The document discusses House of Lords select committees, what they do, and how citizens can engage with their work. It provides an overview of the different types of select committees in the House of Lords, including domestic, policy, liaison, sessional, EU, and ad hoc committees. It describes the committee process, from investigation and calling for evidence to deliberation and reporting. Examples are given of past committees that engaged with the public. The document encourages citizens to get involved by speaking to committee staff, attending meetings, subscribing to updates, and following the committees on social media.
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House of Lords Select Committees
- 1. © House of Lords 2015 Aaron Speer Clerk of the Select Committee on SexualViolence in Conflict 19 February 2016 Understanding Parliament – UK Parliament select committees: what they do and why they need you House of Lords select committees
- 2. © House of Lords 2015 Different types of select committee Domestic • Investigative • Legislative Policy committees
- 3. © House of Lords 2015 Liaison Committee Joint sessional committees Human Rights National Security Strategy Sessional committees Communications Constitution Economic Affairs Science & Technology EU committees EU Select Committee Energy and Environment Sub-Committee External Affairs Sub-Committee Financial Affairs Sub-Committee Home Affairs Sub-Committee Internal Market Sub-Committee Justice Sub- Committee Ad hoc committees Built Environment Equality Act 2010 (post-leg) Sexual Violence in Conflict Social Mobility Draft IP Bill (Pre-leg) Investigative committees (cross-cutting and non-departmental)
- 4. © House of Lords 2015 Characteristics of Lords committees “Cross-cutting” rather than departmental Complement the Commons Distinctive style Consensual
- 5. © House of Lords 2015 Membership (unelected) Usually 12 Members on each committee General political balance (4 Lab, 4 Cons, 2 X-B and 2 LD). Government does not have a majority About 170 Members currently involved – rotation rule = 3 sessions Selected by Committee of Selection, on nomination of Chief Whips and Convenor of the Crossbenchers
- 6. © House of Lords 2015 The process of committee work Investigation and exploratory work; seminars Call for Evidence Oral/written evidence collected; visits Deliberation Report Where time is tight some of these steps may be dispensed with or semi-combined.
- 7. © House of Lords 2015 Examples of public engagement with Lords select committees • HIV and AIDS in the UK Committee (2010-11) • Adoption Legislation Committee (post-leg) (2012-13) • Draft Deregulation Bill Committee (pre-leg) (2013) • Mental Capacity Act 2005 Committee (2013-14) • Equality Act 2010 and Disability Committee (post-leg) (2015- 16) • Social Mobility Committee (2015-16) • Science and Technology Committee (sessional) • Joint Committee on Human Rights (sessional) • Communications Committee (sessional)
- 8. © House of Lords 2015 Outcomes Committees report to the House, but have a wider audience Government response and debate Impact Evaluation and “follow-up”
- 9. © House of Lords 2015 How to engage with the work of select committees Talk to committee staff Go and see a committee sitting, or watch a webcast Subscribe to web alerts & follow us onTwitter
- 10. © House of Lords 2015 Finding out more about select committees http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/lordscommitteebulletin/
- 11. © House of Lords 2015© House of Lords 2015 Session 2014-15: what we said
- 12. © House of Lords 2015© House of Lords 2015 Session 2014-15: what we did
- 13. © House of Lords 2015 Session 2014-15: where we went
Editor's Notes
- Brief introduction. Experience: 2nd Clerk to Joint Committee on Draft Communications Data Bill; Clerk to EU Sub-Committee D (now Energy and Environment Sub-Committee); Clerk to Digital Skills Committee; and Presently Clerk to Sexual Violence in Conflict Committee.
- What is a select committee? Within the context of the Lords: a body of Members of the House who have been selected to sit on that body and to which a task or function has been given or committed. There are two main types of select committee: Domestic committees – concerned with the administration of the House. Not the focus of this talk. Policy committees: Investigative – considers matters of public policy within a particular area. Select committees are mostly investigative. Legislative – considers primary, secondary and draft legislation. As with domestic committees, not the focus of this talk. This talk will focus on investigative committees, which are supported by the Committee Office.
- Current structure of investigative committees (excluding domestic committees). Liaison Committee: Exercises general oversight of Lords policy committee activity; Composed of party leaders and senior Members of the House; and Considers proposals for new committee activity, and constraints. Sessional committees: Communications, Constitution, Economic Affairs, EU and Science & Technology. New sessional committee on International Relations expected to be appointed in next Session. Ad hoc committees: Growth area for the House of Lords. The House is setting up more and more “ad hoc” Committees, which look at a specific issue, report, and are then wrapped up. Some look at stand-alone issues: this year includes Built Environment, Sexual Violence in Conflict and Social Mobility. Previous Session included Arctic and Digital Skills. Some look at post-legislative scrutiny: this year includes Equality Act 2010. Extradition Law and Practice Committee last Session. Joint committees: There are also joint committees of the two Houses, with Members of both. Some are permanent: e.g. the Joint Committee on Human Rights or on the National Security Strategy. Some are set up to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny of a particular piece of draft legislation: e.g. Draft Investigatory Powers Bill this Session. Draft Protection of Charities Bill (last Session). Some are set up to consider urgent matters of public policy (sometimes with a bit of pre-leg thrown in): e.g. the Commission on Banking Standards.
- Cross-cutting: e.g. Science & Technology inquiry into International STEM Students (touched upon immigration policies). Complement the Commons: Avoid duplication of the work of other bodies, particularly Commons committees (so committee remits are normally thematic rather than departmentally based, as in the Commons). BUT there is increasing pressure for overlap. Post-legislative scrutiny also tends to be more cross-cutting (i.e. not done in a departmental manner). Distinctive style: Behaviour tends to be less formal than in the House. More interested in ‘information gathering’. Most committees are outward-facing and engage with interested parties. Often conduct longer inquiries (i.e. for a full year/Session). Don’t shy away from tricky subjects (e.g. mandatory life sentence for murder, assisted dying, HIV/AIDs, sexual violence in conflict). Consensual: tend to be consensual (rare for divisions). Arguably less political than the Commons (most of the time?).
- ‘House of expertise’: e.g. Sexual Violence in Conflict – L. Hannay (UN), B. Nicholson (charity work), B. Young, L. Sterling (military). Some committees have the power to co-opt other Members of the House with relevant expertise for a particular inquiry (e.g. Science & Technology and EU). Any Member has the right to attend a committee meeting (but does not have voting rights). Process of membership – Chairman of Committees is appointed; Committee of Selection meets to agree membership – including chairmen (not elected); put to the House for agreement in the form of motions (in the Chairman of Committee’s name). Slightly different with ad hocs (expediency motions from Leader of the House first, then appointment motions on different day).
- It’s not that some steps are combined, but sort of combined – e.g. might start taking oral evidence before Call for Evidence is published. This is often the case for ad hoc committees, which normally start taking oral evidence before all written evidence has been submitted. Most committee Secretariats are made up of a Clerk, Policy Analyst and Committee Assistant. The public are always more than welcome to speak with any member of the Secretariat if you have questions or queries. Stages at which the public can get involved: Call for Evidence: Anyone can provide a written submission in response to a Call for Evidence. Sometimes if a particular written submission is compelling, the individual might be invited to provide oral evidence to the committee. Even if not asked to provide oral evidence, written evidence will still be published and possibly cited in the final report. Oral/written evidence collected/visits: As noted above, it may be the case that members of the public who have submitted written evidence are invited to provide oral evidence to a committee. Those invited to give oral evidence are referred to as “witnesses”, but don’t let this term be off-putting; it is an old-fashioned term and is not in anyway judicial! Members of the public may also be invited to meet with committee Members for informal discussions which can then be used to inform a committee’s deliberations and be used in the final report. On the flip side, committees sometimes conduct visits that will involve meeting members of the public. Even if not providing evidence, all members of the public are welcome to attend public evidence sessions. More information on where to find out details about committee meetings is provided later. Report: Once a report is published, it is usually debated in the House some time later. Members of the public are welcome to come into the Palace and sit in the gallery to watch.
- It’s not just about the public approaching Parliament. We are continuously trying to find new ways to reach out to the public; so keep an eye out for ways in which you could engage with committees and register your interest. HIV and AIDS in the UK Committee: Individuals living with HIV submitted written evidence to the inquiry, which was subsequently used in the Committee’s report. Members also visited three hospitals to speak with those affected by HIV. Adoption Legislation Committee: Through the office of the Children’s Rights Director, the Committee held four groups with: children who had been adopted; their adoptive parents; children in care; and their foster carers. The meetings were held in private, with only two Members, a staff member and the Director present. A note was taken which was published in the appendix to the report, having been agreed with the participants before publication. All comments were reported on an anonymous basis but the Committee was able to use quotes in the report. The meetings made a big impact on the Members present, as well as on those who were not. Draft Deregulation Bill Committee: Received a high volume of evidence from members of the public relating specifically to rights of way. The Committee subsequently invited a panel of witnesses to provide oral evidence on this; member of the public who represented organised groups. Mental Capacity Act 2005 Committee: Held two specially convened meetings to discuss the rights of people affect by the Act: a support group for adults with early onset dementia and a group of adults with learning disabilities. Minutes of both meetings were published and included in an appendix to the report, as well as quotes being used in the report itself. The Committee also had some people get in touch with very harrowing personal accounts of how they were affected by the Act. One particular individual – a father of an adult son with learning disabilities who campaigned for over a year to have this son released from a facility where he was being held against his wishes – was called to provide oral evidence based on his written submission. Other personal submissions featured prominently in the evidence that was quoted. The Committee also published an easy read version of the report. Equality Act 2010 and Disability Committee: This Committee has been keen to receive oral evidence from disabled people. Six members of the public were invited to give oral evidence on the basis of their written evidence. Their evidence will be referenced quite a lot in the final report. Social Mobility Committee: This Committee has been keen to communicate with young people who don’t normally engage with Parliament. They developed a survey with the Children's Commissioner and put this online – with support from Outreach and related organisation. They also held focus groups. As a result of such engagement the report is planning to use a number of quotes from the groups and analysis from the survey results. Science and Technology Committee: Ahead of an evidence session on regenerative medicine in October 2012, members of the public were invited, by means of a YouTube video, to tweet questions that they would like to be asked. The evidence session was then uploaded to YouTube. A similar approach was used by an EU Sub-Committee conducting an inquiry into youth unemployment in 2013-14. Joint Committee on Human Rights: During its 2014-15 inquiry into violence against women and girls the Committee hosted a Netmums forum asking users for their opinions on educating about consent in schools and how tactics regarding the prevention of violence against women should be communicated to young people. It also sent out a survey to all NUS users asking about their experience of violence against women and girls (issues surrounding knowing where to turn for help, knowing the law on consent, etc.) at university, or during their PSHE education. It got over a thousand responses from students which helped them to understand what young people are taught in PSHE and how higher education institutes are involved. Both approaches are included in appendices to the report. Communications Committee: Current inquiry on renewal of the BBC’s Charter – the Committee was keen to not hear from the ‘usual suspects’ and engage with young people. Outreach helped organise for around 24 young people to come into Parliament and have a roundtable discussion with several Members, followed by a feedback session. A note/appendix on this discussion will be included in the report. In addition, a number of individual members of the public submitted personal written submissions which will be referenced directly in the report.
- Wider audience: for example, civil society, EU, etc. Government response and debate: Investigative reports usually debated on the floor and all receive a written response from Government within two months. Sometimes a response from others (e.g. European Commission). Government responses to Lords reports normally require cross-Whitehall correspondence/working; two months may sound like a lot of time, but in practice this isn’t the case. Impact: Reports from committees may feed into the legislative process. EU Committee scrutiny of EU legislative proposals (new ‘green card’ procedure suggested, food waste report resulted in ‘FareShare Surplus Food Summit’ – first of its kind). Evaluation and “follow-up”: Growing concern about timeliness and length of Government responses (we have started tracking and noting ‘late’ responses). New Liaison Committee role for ad hoc committees – agreed to yearly follow-up on specific recommendations flagged by ad hoc committees.
- Committee Bulletin is a useful first stop if you want details about current committee activity/meetings (and if you can’t reach Secretariat). Also be sure to look at the individual committee web pages for details.
- Democratic Republic of Congo in November 2015