OBJECTIONS TO QUESTIONS IN SELECT COMMITTEES
1. On June 25th, Sir John Stanley MP wrote to the
Chairman of the Procedure Committee to draw attention to an incident
in the Foreign Affairs Committee of which he was a Member and
in which:
"during the Committee's
proceedings on Tuesday June 23, a question to a witness from myself
was objected to by another member of the Committee. The witnesses
then withdrew and a motion to adjourn the Committee was subsequently
carried on a division."
Sir John was concerned that:
"Ready recourse to the
objections procedure in Select Committees, enabling any line of
questioning to be brought to a halt by a single member of a Select
Committee calling 'object', would make it impossible for Select
Committees to discharge the responsibilities given to them by
Resolution of the House."
He asked the Committee to "consider, as a matter
of some urgency, whether the objections procedure should now cease
to be available to Select Committee members." Other Members
have also asked us to examine this matter and we have complied
with their request. The Clerk of the House of Commons has prepared
a memorandum on the subject, for which we are grateful; we attach
this as an Appendix to our Report.
2. Erskine May makes it clear that:
"If a question should be objected to, or if
any difference should arise in regard to the examination of a
witness, witnesses and any strangers who are present are directed
by the chairman to withdraw, and the committee proceeds to consider
the matter. When the committee has come to a decision the witness
is again called in, and the examination proceeds."[1]
We have to consider whether there is a case for retaining
the procedure. It appeared to us that the best way to do this
was not to consider the specifics of the incident in the Foreign
Affairs Committee, but to consider the matter from a point of
principle.
3. Select Committees derive their powers from the
fact that they are established by the House as a whole. They are
more than a random collection of individuals; in each Committee
Members should work toward a common purpose. However, individual
Members are free to bring their own preoccupations and their own
questions to an inquiry, and put them to witnesses without giving
notice to the other members of the Committee. The Chairman or
another Committee Member may intervene if it is felt that the
questioning strays beyond the scope of an inquiry, or is unfair
to a witness, and the offending questions may be withdrawn or
not pursued. However formal objections are rare. We can find only
two certain precedents for Mr Ross's action since 1937; one in
1937-38, the other in 1989-90[2].
4. The question is whether it is necessary for a
Committee to have some formal means of imposing its collective
will on one of its Members. In the case before us, the dispute
appears to have been about the conduct of an inquiry, but there
are other reasons why a question might be objected to: it might
breach the sub-judice rule or invite a breach of the Official
Secrets Act. It might be unfair to a witness.
5. Any of the instances in paragraph 4 seem valid
reasons for objection, particularly the last. The issue is not
just about fairness to Members, but fairness to those who appear
before them. Witnesses before Select Committees have very few
safeguards; the majority of the Committee should at least have
some means by which to protect them from questioning which it
believes to be unfair. We believe that some formal sanction is
needed if a Member persists in improper questioning.
6. The procedure described in Erskine May
does not allow one Member to frustrate another; it offers the
Committee the opportunity to make a collective decision. In the
two most recent cases, it has performed its function of allowing
time for reflection; in the first the question was withdrawn;
in the other, the Foreign Affairs Committee agreed, at a subsequent
meeting, that the disputed question should be put to the witness.
7. One alternative to the current procedure would
be to force committees to agree precise lines of questioning,
from which no deviation was possible. We cannot believe our colleagues
would welcome this as either desirable or practicable. Another
would be to give the Chairmen of Select Committees powers analogous
to those enjoyed by Chairmen of Standing Committees so that they
could rule a question out of order without resort to private session.
This would be a radical change. Like all procedures, objections
to questions in select committees could be misused; for example,
a single Member or group of Members might employ the device to
disrupt a Committee's evidence hearings. We take Sir John's point
that "ready recourse to the objections procedure in Select
Committees ... would make it impossible for Select Committees
to discharge the responsibilities given to them by Resolution
of the House". There has been no ready recourse to the procedure
in the past; if there is in future, we undertake to look at this
matter again. Unless that happens, however, we are content that
the formal objections procedure has a place in select committee
practice as a useful device which is only to be employed in extreme
circumstances.
1 Erskine May, Parliamentary Practice, 22nd
Edition, p.651. Back
2
See Proceedings of the Select Committee on the Official
Secrets Act, HC(1937-38)173, p.xlv and First Report from the Select
Committee On Members' Interests, Session 1989-90, HC 135 Minutes
of Proceedings, Tuesday 11th July p.xxxvi; there have
been other occasions when disagreements between Members have led
the Committee to clear the room and sit in private, although the
formal proceeding of objecting to a question has not been invoked;
See Seventh Report from the Treasury and Civil Service
Committee, Session 1985-86, Civil Servants and Ministers: Duties
and Responsibilities, Minutes of Evidence, HC 92ii, p.151. Back
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