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PARLIAMENTARY DICTIONARY
COMMITTEE, SELECT--continued
from select committees of the House of Commons unless the House has ordered tha: the committee shall be a committee of secrecy" (no committee of secrecy has been appointed since 1857), but they usually withdraw out of courtesy-whenever the commit- tee is about to deliberate. They are, however, not allowed to address the committee, put questions to witnesses or take part in the proceedings. Any lord is entitled to attend a select committee of the House of Lords and may speak. He is, however, not allowed to vote.
Report. When all the evidence has been taken the chairman usually prepares a draft report which is circulated amongst the members of the committee. A meeting is then held for the pur- pose of considering the chairman's draft report and any draft reports that may be submitted by other members. If no alterna- tive draft report is submitted to the committee, the chairman's draft report is taken as read, and the chairman puts the question that it be read a second time, paragraph by paragraph ". If this question is decided in the affirmative, the committee goes through the report, paragraph by paragraph. Every paragraph is open to amendment. If no amendment is proposed, or when all the proposed amendments have been disposed of, the chairman puts the question that the paragraph, or the paragraph as amended, "stand part of the report". New paragraphs may be inserted between paragraphs or added at the end of the report. The procedure on a new paragraph is similar to the procedure on a new clause (see CLAUSE). When the consideration of the draft report and any proposed additional paragraphs is finished, the chairman puts the question, "That this report (or this report as amended) be the report of the committee to the House", and, on this being decided in the affirmative, the question, "That I do report the minutes of the evidence taken before the committee to the House ".
If more than one report is submitted to the committee, some member moves that one of the rival reports, usually the one submitted by the chairman, be read a second time, paragraph by paragraph. To this motion an amend.nent may be moved with the object of substituting the other a.aft report, or one of the other reports if there are more than two. When the committee has decided which of the rival draft reports shall be considered, the report selected is considered in the manner already des- cribed. Members of the committee who object to particular paragraphs in the report, or to the whole report, can put their dissent on record by dividing against the paragraphs to which they object or against the whole report, but cannot present a minority report. If more than one draft report is submitted to the committee, all the draft reports are printed in full in the minutes which are published with the report.