Select Committees - Accountability + Transparency

What are Select Committees?

Modern system of Select Committees (SC) introduced in 1985
Groups of MP’s that scrutinise government activity in particular:

• Bills after first reading

• policies

• implementation of policies and legislation

• public issues, government administration or finances

• review of international treaties

Pressure point of the legislative process

Two types of select committees

Subject select Committee - current government ministers cannot sit on these committees because they are apart of the executive and can’t really scrutinise themselves'.

 

Select Committee Membership.

• Committee membership aligns with the proportional membership of the HoR

  • Size and membership of each committee is established by the Business Committee.

• Committee chairs are elected, and are not limited to the principle of proportionality (nor have to be in government)

• Ministers do not sit on Subject Select Committees

  • But can sit of Specialist select committee

Operation of SC: sit in between 1st and 2nd reading

• Majority of bills go through SC (urgency = exception, bypasses SC)

• Bulk of SC's work is legislative scrutiny;

  • Examining drafted bills

  • Invite written submissions from the public and hear oral evidence [to help in scrutiny by seeing how it affect the public]; briefings and advice from departmental officials etc [raises question on exec's role in SC, department officials have a dual role]

  • Write up a non-binding report with proposed amendments

    • Unanimously agreed amendments automatically included in bill's second reading.

    • So they try to agree

• Have power to initiate own inquiries

Chairperson + who can be summoned to a select committee.

can request that any person attend and give evidence to the committee [public, literally anyone].

Ministers cannot be summoned only requested [not compellable], because they are only accountable to the HOR. But they can be helpful to the SC because they propose the legislation, allows SC to get Q's answered.  To better fulfill purpose of getting better laws.

What happens if the person asked to attend says no?, can be a problem on how SC conducts inquiry

Effectiveness of Select Committees

SC and departmental officials

Environment Select Committee