The Government of England Part 29

[258:5] _Ibid._, 472-3.

[258:6] S.O. 36.

[258:7] S.O. 40.

[258:8] S.O. 32, 51.

[258:9] S.O. 53.

[258:10] _E.g._ S.O. 1 (7), 18, 26, 31, 91.

[258:11] S.O. 22, 23.

[259:1] May, 151.

[259:2] _Cf. ibid._, 150, note 3.

[260:1] S.O. 26.

[260:2] S.O. 23.

[260:3] S.O. 19.

[260:4] But the Speaker himself may submit a question to the judgment of the House. May, 331.

[260:5] The action of the Speaker can be brought before the House only by a motion made at another time after due notice, but this is, of course, almost useless for the purpose of reversing the ruling complained of: Hans. 3 Ser. CCLVIII., 10, 14. On the occasion when Speaker Brand made this ruling he intimated that a member making on the spot a motion to disagree with it would be guilty of disregarding the authority of the chair, and liable to suspension under the standing orders. _Ibid._, 9.

[261:1] The Lord Chancellor has far less power as presiding officer of the House of Lords. May, 186, 296, 307, 331.

[261:2] S.O. 18. If a member who is suspended refuses to leave the House, the Speaker may, on his own authority, suspend him for the remainder of the session. _Ibid._

[262:1] In 1902 the provision, common in continental legislatures, which authorises the Speaker to suspend the sitting, in case of grave disorder, was embodied in S.O. 21. This has been used only once, on May 22, 1905, when the Opposition, thinking it was the duty of the Prime Minister to give an immediate explanation, refused with great disorder to hear another member of the government. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXLVI., 1061-72.) One may hope that it will rarely be necessary to apply this undignified process of taking off the lid to allow the tea-pot to cool down.

[262:2] May, 348-49.

[262:3] May, 344-48.

[262:4] May, 361-62.

[263:1] May, 191; S.O. 81 (formerly S.O. 83).

[263:2] S.O. 81 (2). By S.O. 1 (9), the Speaker nominates a panel of not more than five members to act as temporary chairmen of committees, but this would seem to have been rendered less necessary by the new provision for a deputy chairman.

[263:3] May, 198.

[263:4] May, 195.

CHAPTER XIII

PROCEDURE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

_Committees and Public Bills_

[Sidenote: The Committees.]

No great representative a.s.sembly at the present day can do all its work in full meeting. It has neither the time, the patience nor the knowledge required. Its sittings ought not to be frittered away in discussing proposals that have no chance of success; while measures that are to be brought before the whole body ought to be threshed out beforehand, their provisions carefully weighed and put into precise language, objections, if possible, met by concession and compromise, or brought to a sharp difference of principle. In short, they ought to be put into such a shape that the a.s.sembly is only called upon to decide a small number of perfectly definite questions. To enable it to do so intelligently it may be necessary also to collect information about doubtful facts. Modern a.s.semblies have sought to accomplish these results mainly by committees of some kind; and in England where the parliamentary form of government has reached a higher development than anywhere else, the chief instrument for the purpose is that informal joint committee of the Houses, known as the cabinet. But unless Parliament were to be very nearly reduced to the role of criticising the ministers, and answering yes or no to a series of questions propounded by them, it must do a part of its work through other committees. The reasons why those committees have not become--as in some other European nations that have adopted the system of a responsible ministry--dangerous rivals of the cabinet, at times frustrating its objects and undermining its authority, will be discussed in the chapters on the relation between the cabinet and the House of Commons. We must consider here their organisation and duties.

[Sidenote: The Committee of the Whole.]

The most important committee, the Committee of the Whole, is not in this sense a committee at all. It is simply 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.[265:1] 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 reconst.i.tuted.[265:2]

[Sidenote: Select Committees.]

Of the real committees the most numerous are the select committees.

Their normal size is fifteen members, although they are often smaller, and occasionally, by special leave of the House,[265:3] they are somewhat larger. They may be nominated from the floor, and elected by the House,[265:4] or chosen by ballot; but in order to avoid loss of time, and to secure impartiality, the appointment of a part, at least, of the members is usually intrusted to the Committee of Selection.

[Sidenote: 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.[266:1] 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.[266:2]

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.[266:3] 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.

[Sidenote: Other Sessional Committees.]

The remaining sessional committees are the Committee on Public Accounts,[266:4] 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 Pet.i.tions, appointed to inspect the numerous pet.i.tions presented to the House;[266:5] and the Committee on the Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms, which has importance for the members of the House, though not for the general public.[267:1]

[Sidenote: Other Select Committees.]

[Sidenote: Their Object.]

The other select committees are created to consider some special matter that is referred to them, either a bill, or a subject upon which the House wishes to inst.i.tute an inquiry.[267:2] In either case the chief object of the committee is to obtain and sift information. Even where a particular bill is 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.[267:3] Select committees are the organs, and the only organs, of the House for collecting evidence and examining witnesses;[267:4] 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 United States, where anybody is at liberty to attend and express his views--a practice that deserves far more attention than it has yet received.

[Sidenote: Their Procedure.]

In select committees the procedure follows as closely as possible that of a Committee of the Whole;[268:1] 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,[268:2] 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 subst.i.tute 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,[268:3] the subst.i.tute with the names of those who voted for it, are submitted to the House, and have the effect of a minority report.

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 doc.u.ments, 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.

[Sidenote: Joint Committees.]

From obvious motives of convenience joint select committees from the Lords and Commons have been occasionally appointed,[269:1] 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.[269:2] The princ.i.p.al exceptions of late years have been the joint committees on statute law revision bills and on the subject of munic.i.p.al trading.

[Sidenote: Standing or Grand Committees.]

As the pressure for time in the House of Commons grew more intense, select committees that collected information were not enough. Something was needed that would save 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.[269:3] 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, s.h.i.+pping, manufactures, agriculture, and fis.h.i.+ng.

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 subst.i.tute 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.