COMMITTEE, SELECT
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been appointed a member of the committee or not) is its chairman. Procedure in Select Committees. The rules of procedure are generally speaking the same for a select committee as in the House by which it is appointed. But (1) a member may speak more than once to the same question; (2) níembers speak sitting and may refer to other members by name; (3) the chairman may take part in the proceedings; (4) the previous question (q.v.) cannot be moved; and (5) the chairman of a select committee has not the powers with which the Speaker in the House, and the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means in committees of the whole House, are invested of accepting the closure, of dealing with persistent irrelevance or tedious repetition of arguments, and with dilatory motions, and of selecting the new clauses or the amendments which are to be proposed to bills or motions.
The chairman of a Commons select committee votes only when the votes are equal. In a select committee of the House of Lords the chairman votes like any other member, but has no casting vote, and if the votes are equal the question is generally decided in the negative (see EQUALITY OF VOTES).
On March 23, 1693, the House resolved" That no member of the House do presume to take tobacco, at the table, sitting at com- mittees". The rule against smoking is not enforced while a select committee is deliberating, but it-applies whenever witnesses are under examination.
Divisions. When a Commons select committee divides, the committee clerk calls the names of the members in alphabetical order, each member, as his name is called, answering aye or no, The clerk notes the answers on or stating that he does not vote. his list and, when he has called all the names, counts the numbers. and hands the list to the chairman, who states the numbers and declares the decision of the committee. Members are allowed to abstain from voting. The procedure in a Lords committee is the same except that the committee clerk calls the names of the members in order of seniority and that the members answer
content" or "not content
Admission of Public. The House of Commons sometimes gives its committees power to admit strangers (i.e., members of the public, including the press) during the examination of wit- nesses, unless the committee otherwise order. If a committee is given this power strangers are excluded only by a majority decision of the committee. If no such power is given, strangers, if admitted at all, must withdraw at the desire of any individual member of the committee; and some committees, notably the Committee of Public Accounts, never admit strangers. In both Houses the public are never allowed to be present while a select committee is deliberating. Members of the House of Commons who are not members of the committee cannot be excluded
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