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(1) There shall be a select committee,
called the Committee on Standards and Privileges-
(a) to
consider specific matters relating to privileges referred to it
by the House;
(b) to oversee the work of the
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards; to examine the arrangements
proposed by the Commissioner for the compilation, maintenance
and accessibility of the Register of Members' Interests and any
other registers of interest established by the House; to review
from time to time the form and content of those registers; and
to consider any specific complaints made in relation to the registering
or declaring of interests referred to it by the Commissioner;
and
(c) to consider any matter relating
to the conduct of Members, including specific complaints in relation
to alleged breaches in any code of conduct to which the House
has agreed and which have been drawn to the committee's attention
by the Commissioner; and to recommend any modifications to such
code of conduct as may from time to time appear to be necessary.
(2) The committee shall consist
of eleven Members, of whom five shall be a quorum.
(3) Unless the House otherwise
orders, each Member nominated to the committee shall continue
to be a member of it for the remainder of the Parliament.
(4) The committee shall have
power to appoint sub-committees consisting of no more than seven
Members, of whom three shall be a quorum, and to refer to such
sub-committees any of the matters referred to the committee; and
shall appoint one such sub-committee to receive reports from the
Commissioner relating to investigations into specific complaints.
(5) The committee and any sub-committee
shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit
notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from
place to place, to report from time to time and to appoint specialist
advisers either to supply information which is not readily available
or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee's order
of reference.
(6) The committee shall have
power to order the attendance of any Member before the committee
or any sub-committee and to require that specific documents or
records in the possession of a Member relating to its inquiries,
or to the inquiries of a sub-committee or of the Commissioner,
be laid before the committee or any sub-committee.
(7) The committee, or any sub-committee,
shall have power to refer to unreported evidence of former Committees
of Privileges or of former Select Committees on Members' Interests
and to any documents circulated to any such committee.
(8) The committee shall have
power to refuse to allow proceedings to which strangers are admitted
to be broadcast.
(9) Mr Attorney General, the
Lord Advocate, Mr Solicitor General and Mr Solicitor General for
Scotland, being Members of the House, may attend the committee
or any sub-committee, may take part in deliberations, may receive
committee or sub-committee papers and may give such other assistance
to the committee or sub-committee as may be appropriate, but shall
not vote or make any motion or move any amendment or be counted
in the quorum.
Votes and Proceedings
for
Friday 4 July 1997
Ordered,
That the Minutes of Evidence taken before, and the Memoranda submitted
to, the Committee on Standards and Privileges in the last Parliament
be referred to the Committee on Standards and Privileges.
The membership of the Committee
since its nomination on 25 June 1997 has been as follows:
| Mr Peter Bottomley
| Mr Terry Lewis
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| Mr Dale Campbell-Savours
| Shona McIsaac
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| Mr Quentin Davies
| Mr Robert Sheldon
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| Mr Michael Foster (Hastings & Rye)
| Miss Ann Widdecombe
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| Mr Charles Kennedy
| Mr Alan Williams (Swansea West)
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| Mr Tom Levitt
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Mr Robert Sheldon was elected
Chairman on 1 July 1997.
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