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PARLIAMENTARY DICTIONARY

COMMITTEE SELECT-continued

not, however, power to select which amendments or new clauses shall be proposed. If the committee, in addition to reporting the bill with or without amendment wishes to express its views on the matters dealt with in the bill, it makes a special report, which is drawn up in the same way as the report of a select committee on a matter. In some cases a select committee, after taking evidence, has come to the conclusion that it is inexpedient that the bill should pass into law, and has made a special report to that effect and reported the bill without amendment.

Committee Clerk. Each select committee is attended by a clerk who keeps the minutes, conducts the correspondence of the committee, makes arrangements for the attendance of witnesses (subject, of course, to such directions as he receives from the chairman), examines corrections made by witnesses in the proof sheets of their evidence and checks their claims for payments of expenses. He advises the chairman and the committce on question of order and procedure. It is now usual for the clerk to assist the chairman in the preparation of his draft report and even to write it for him.

COMMITTEE, SESSIONAL

A term applied to two types of select committee:

(1) A select committee which is permanent in the sense that, being appointed by standing order, it does not have to be re- appointed each session, though the members have to be nominated.

(2) A select committee which is appointed session after session. In the House of Commons there are five sessional committees of the first type, viz., the Committee of Selection, the Standing Orders Committee, the Committee of Public Accounts, the Esti- mates Committee and the Business Committee.

Committees of Privileges and Committees on Public Petitions have been appointed every session for more than a century, and accordingly beyond doubt are committees of the second type. Committees with the same orders of reference (or with orders of reference not materially different) have also sat to consider the following subjects in every session from that given until 1969-70, viz., Statutory Instruments (1943-44), Nationalised Industries (1956-57), Procedure (1961-62), House of Commons (Services) (1965-66), Science and Technology (1966-67) and Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (1967-68).

In the House of Lords there are four sessional commutees of the first type, viz., the Standing Orders Committee, the Committee of Selection, the Special Orders Committee and the Personal Bills Committee, and eight sessional committees of the second type, viz., two Appeal Committees, two Appellate Committees, the House of Lords Offices Committee, the Leave of Absence Committee, the Select Committee on the Procedure of the House

Estimates Committec has been superseded by Expenditure Committee

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