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summons the Accounting Officer and Ministers do not appear before it.
9. The Expenditure Committee, the Select Committee on Nationalised
Industries and the specialist Committees, and their sub-committees,
often admit the public and Press to hearings. The PAC and the Select
Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner, however, do not.
10. The work of the various Committees is co-ordinated by an
unofficial liaison group composed of their chairmen, presided over
by the Chairman of the PAC.
Powers of the Committees“
11.
Committees are empowered by the terms of reference given them
by the House to send for persons, papers and records. In practice
the exercise of these powers is limited to what the majority of the
House of Commons which is normally at the disposal of the Government -
is prepared to enforce. Committees summon departmental and other
witnesses and ask departments to submit memoranda. In some cases
Committees may ask for an official by name (and the PAC will, of
course, always summon the Accounting Officer who gives evidence on
his own behalf); but it is for the Government to decide who shall
give evidence on their behalf, and official evidence should be given
only by permanent heads of departments or by officials nominated by
them for the purpose.
12. The PAC is in a special position in view of the C & AG's access
to departmental papers but in general Committees cannot require the
-Throughout the rest of this note "Committee(s)" is taken to include
sub-committee(s).
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