CONFIDENTIAL
SELECT COMMITTEES
MEMORANDUM OF GUIDANCE FOR OFFICIALS
This note is intended to give guidance to officials who may be
called to give evidence before, or to prepare memoranda for
submission to, Parliamentary Select Committee. It supersedes thic
note circulated on 19 August 1969 by the Civil Service Department
with DEO letter MG 23/113/01, and it incorporates and up-dates
the guidance on Departmental replies given in PESC (66)17 and
PESC (69)21. While it is primarily intended to cover the Select
Committees of the House of Commons listed in para 3,it is alɛo
generally applicable to Select Committees of the House of Lords
It may not always be literally applicable to the Public Accounts
Committee to whom the Accounting Officer has personal responsibilities
and on behalf of whom the Comptroller and Auditor General has access
to departmental records.
2.
>
The general principle is that it is the duty of officials to
be as helpful as possible to Committees, and that such limitations
as are described are no more than are necessary to preserve constitu-
tional proprieties and confidence which are essential to good
government, or to safeguard national security.
Present Committee System
3.
Following the Green Paper of October 1970 "Select Commitleca
of the House of Commons "(Cînd 4507) and the Commons debate on it
on 12 November 1970, the structure of Commons Committees 18 98
follows:-
1
CONFIDENTIAL