Adjournment of

committees. From place to place.

XV.

standing order (Private Business) No. 124, all questions Chapter
are decided by a majority of voices, including the voice of
the chairman; and, whenever the voices are equal, the
chairman has a second or casting vote.

The doors of the committee room are deemed to be locked
whilst a division is being taken, and a member who has
heard the question cannot abstain from giving his vote. A
member, having voted by mistake, has been allowed to
correct the error; and a member's vote has been dis-
allowed, as he was not in the room when the question was
put.1

A select committee may adjourn its sittings from time to time, and occasionally a power is also given by the house to adjourn from place to place; 2 or from time to time, and from place to place. This power of adjournment from place to place is generally intended to enable a committee to hold its sittings in different parts of London, as the Mint committee of 1837, at the Mint; the Coal Mines committee of 1852, at the Polytechnic Institution; the National Gallery committee of 1853, at the National Gallery; and the Oaths committee of 1850, at the house of Mr. Wynn, a member of the committee, who was sick. But in 1834, the committee on the Inns of Court appointed a quorum to go into Essex, to take the evidence of a witness who was unable to move from home. In 1858, it was proposed to give the power of adjourning from place to place to the committee on contracts (Public Departments), in order to enable it to hold its sitting at Weedon: but the proposal was withdrawn, and a royal commission appointed. In 1863, this power was granted to the committee on the Thames Conservancy, to empower it to visit different parts of the river to which its inquiry extended. In 1864, the same power was given to the committee on Schools of Art.5 In certain cases, select committees have been appointed pointed to expressly for the purpose of taking the examination of

Committees ap

examine

sick
1 Railway Rates, &c., committee,
witnesses. 1882, Report, pp. 50. 63.

2 89 C. J. 419; 101 ib. 152; 105 ib.
215; 107 ib. 279; 108 ib. 453; 111

ib. 318.

3 72 ib. 318; 108 ib. 350.
118 ib. 240.

5 119 ib. 255.

XV.

Chapter witnesses who were incapacitated by sickness from attending personally to be examined before the house or its committees.1

Application by a stand

ing committee for leave to sit,

n. 1.

Practice regarding

Serjeant's

call, see p.

230, n. 1.

mittees

S. O. 54,

Formerly, without the leave of the house, no committee Comof the Commons could sit during a sitting of the house, but may sit, now, by standing order No. 54, all committees, not being except during see p. 395, standing committees (see p. 394) are able to sit on days prayers. when the house meets for business, during the sitting, and Appendix I. notwithstanding any adjournment of the house, except while the house is at prayers. The Serjeant, therefore, under standing order No. 64, when the house is going to s. O. 64, prayers, gives notice thereof to the committees, and all Appen lix I. proceedings of committees, after such notice, are null and void, unless such committees be otherwise empowered to sit after prayers. Nor may a committee sit, save by order of the house, on a day when the house is not sitting. Occasionally, committees have been ordered to sit from day sittings to day notwithstanding any adjournment of the house, or journment to sit and proceed forthwith, and to sit from day to day. Without such an order, therefore, on a Friday night, the leave of the house must be obtained to enable a committee to sit on Saturday.

See also p. 188.

Orders are usually made that no committee shall have leave to sit on Ascension Day until two o'clock, in order to enable members to attend morning service.

during ad

of the

house.

ment of

mittees.

A select committee ought to be regularly adjourned from Adjourn one sitting till another, though in practice the reassembling comof the committee is sometimes left to be afterwards arranged by the chairman, by whose direction the members are summoned for a future day: but this practice, not being regular,

161 C. J. 435; 2 Hatsell, 138, n.
2 The words, "any adjournment,"
in the standing order, are held by
usage to mean the adjournment of
the house whilst the committees are
sitting.

3 123 C. J. 183; 124 ib. 87. Leave
given to all committees, during re-
mainder of the session, to sit, not-
withstanding any adjournment of

the house, 21st June, 1892, 147 ib.
390; 26th June 1895, 150 ib. 804.

On Saturday 11th July, 1903,
the joint committee on the Port of
London Bill sat without the Com-
mons' members obtaining leave of
the house. The Speaker ruled pri-
vately that such leave was unneces-
sary.

144 ib. 215; 146 ib. 264.

A select committee revived.

Counsel.

Printed

minutes of evidence.

XV.

can only be resorted to for the convenience of the members, Chapter
and with their general concurrence. In 1871, a complaint
was made, that, a day having been fixed for the next meet-
ing of the committee by the chairman, he had, after consult-
ing several members of the committee, appointed an earlier
day but it was ruled that, under the circumstances ex-
plained to the house, such a proceeding was not irregular.1
In 1856, the Masters and Operatives committee was
revived, in consequence of an irregularity in its adjourn-
ment; being the first instance, it is believed, of such a
proceeding, except in the case of committees on private bills.

:

Where select committees have been appointed to inquire into matters in which the private interests, character, or conduct of members of the House of Commons or other persons are concerned, the committees are empowered to hear counsel on behalf of such persons, the order of the house for that purpose being obtained on petitions presented to the house, on the report of the committee, or on a motion to that effect. A committee has also been instructed that See formal motions, p. they do hear the petitioners by counsel or otherwise; and, 245. on the other hand, the order of the house has provided that such hearing of persons interested shall be at the discretion of the committee. And in accordance with the resolution of the 16th March, 1688, if any information come before Charges against a committee that chargeth a member of the house, the members, committee ought only to direct that the house be acquainted Incrimi see p. 83. with the matter of such information, without proceeding further thereupon.*

The evidence of the witnesses examined before a select committee is taken down in shorthand, and printed daily for the use of the members of the committee. In the Lords,

1 205 H. D. 3 s. 685.

2 111 C. J. 298.

3 77 ib. 405; 88 ib. 169. 568. 588; 110 ib. 367; 116 ib. 307; 119 ib. 193; 123 ib. 263; 124 ib. 48. 51. 87; 143 ib. 234; 144 ib. 253; 152 ib. 29; 155 ib. 178.

10 ib. 51. See also ib. 647, and proceedings of select committee on

5

British South Africa, 21st May,
1897, Parl. Paper, No. 311 session
1897, p. xxxiii., and Mr. Speaker's
ruling, 25th May, 1897, 49 Parl. Deb.
4 s. 1273.

For the permanent establish-
ment of the shorthand writer to
both houses of Parliament, see p.
199. Official reports of evidence by

nating

questions, see p. 86. Oath taken

by wit

nesses, see

P.

XV.

Chapter the printing is authorized by an order of the house; in some cases with special directions restricting the delivery of the copies of the evidence, or of certain portions thereof.1 Protection In the Commons, evidence before select committees is of wit

nesses, see p. 125.

Expenses of wit

nesses, see

p. 434.

Evidence of officers of the house, see p. 431.

of evidence.

printed according to long-established usage. A printed Corrections
copy of his evidence is sent to each witness for his revision,
with an instruction that he can only make verbal corrections,
as corrections in substance must be effected by re-examina-
tion; nor is a witness permitted to see the original manu-
script notes of his evidence. Alterations should be confined
to the correction of inaccuracies, or the necessary explana-
tion of any answer, and are required to be in the handwriting
of the witness himself, unless he is disabled by accident or
infirmity, in which case they may be written by another
person at his dictation. The corrected copy should be
returned without delay to the committee clerk, who is to
examine the corrections, and, if any appear to be irregular,
he is to submit them to the chairman. If the evidence be
not returned, with corrections, in six days, or some other
reasonable time, according to the circumstances, it will be
printed in its original form. Where evidence has been
taken upon oath, its correction should be restrained within
very narrow limits.

On the 20th July, 1849, an instruction was given to a
select committee to re-examine a witness "touching his
former evidence," as it appeared that he had corrected his
evidence more extensively than the rules of the house per-
mitted, and his corrections had consequently not been.
reported by the committee; and in 1849, a committee of
the Lords reported that the alterations made by some of

shorthand writers were first ordered
by the Lords, on divorce bills, 1699,
1700, 16 L. J. 524. 630. 634. Short-
hand writers were subsequently em-
ployed by the Lords in 1786, upon
the slave-trade inquiries; and by
the Commons in 1792, on the Eau
Brink Drainage. Pursuant to 42
Geo. III. c. 84, 1802, shorthand
writers attended election com-
mittees, 3 Lord Colchester's Diary,

3

332; see also resolution 4th May,
1789, 44 C. J. 320, regarding Mr.
Gurney, who was appointed to take
minutes at the trial of Warren
Hastings.

1 115 L. J. 177; 117 ib. 393. 418;
121 ib. 116.

2 Instructions by Mr. Speaker, 16th April, 1861; and see 189 H. D. 3 s. 1223.

3 104 C. J. 525.

Evidence

and report

until

XV.

the witnesses were so unusual, that they had ordered the Chapter
alterations and corrections to be marked, and printed in
the margin.1

Leave is occasionally given to the parties appearing
before a select committee to print the evidence from the
committee clerk's copy, from day to day.2

Both as a breach of the Commons' privileges (see p. 74), not to be and pursuant to the resolution of the house forbidding published the publication, no member, or any other person, may reported. publish any portion of the evidence taken by, or documents presented to select committees, which have not been reported to the house; and this rule extends equally to the report of a committee before it has been presented to the house.*

Draft resolutions or

clauses in

p. 500.

Select committees are able to consider and to report to For money the house resolutions recommending an outlay of public bills remoney for the purposes therein specified, without the pre-select comferred to vious signification of the royal recommendation (see p. 558), mittees, see because such a resolution is classed among those abstract resolutions by the house in favour of public expenditure, which are in the nature of suggestions, and are not in themselves binding upon the action of the house.5

When the evidence has been concluded, the chairman report. prepares resolutions, or a draft report, which it is customary

1 Audit of Railway Accounts (North Wales Railway).

2 The Metropolis Water Bill, 1871, 126 C. J. 292; 131 ib. 300. 350; 132 ib. 141. 202, &c.; 135 ib. 209; 147 ib. 283; 154 ib. 252, &c.

3 21st April, 1837, 92 ib. 282. See also 28 Parl. Deb. 4 s. 1257; second special report from select committee on Cottage Homes Bill (sess. 1899), 154 C. J. 327; 74 Parl. Deb. 4 s. 1013.

See Mr. Speaker's statement (4th July, 1893) with reference to the communication to the press of a report of a select committee, which had been formally presented to the house but was not yet available for the use of members, that the more