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Committees sometimes wish to commission research work or surveys.
Departments may occasionally be able to meet such requests for
research by making available information collected for other purposes,
which may need only a little up-dating or expansion. The Government
Social Survey, for example, already supplies Royal Commissions and
private research institutes with raw data collected as part of its
work. But if the Committees wish to initiate completely fresh
investigations, departments should recommend them to employ their own
research workers on lines agreed with the Services Committee of the
House, or private research agencies and universities.
Departmental Replies
37. Interested Departments and the Press normally receive
advance copies of the Reports of Select Committees 48 hours
before publication; the power for Committees to provide
these is embodied in Standing Orders. While most Committee staff
have been co-operative over this, such advance issue is at their
discretion and Departments cannot insist on seeing copies.
38. This period of notice enables Departments to prepare Press
briefing as appropriate for comment on the Report as soon as it is
published. These inmediate comments are, however, subject to certain
rules and conventions because it is vital that they should not appear
to anticipate or pred judice the Government's final and considered
reply to the Committee's recommendations (see paras 44-45 below).
This is partly a matter of Parliamentary privilege an official
reply to a Select Committee should not be published before it has been
given to the House. It is also a matter of courtesy and good
relations between the Executive and Parliament.
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