Visits
33. In common with most committees, we have made
use of our powers to travel within the UK and overseas. Several
of our Reports have been primarily based on the results of meetings
abroad with a range of people and organisations.[22]
We have found it particularly valuable to pursue the same issues
in visits to different countries. For example, we have held useful
meetings with the senior management of the national post offices
of Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands, which has helped inform
our Reports on postal services. We have undertaken an annual two-day
visit to Brussels for a programme of meetings with Commissioners
and officials, which has helped inform us on subjects of past,
present or future inquiries. We have made paid a number of visits
within the UK. Some of them for example, to individual
vehicle manufacturing plants and to telephone exchanges
have been made by one or two Members in a "representative
capacity". That power was also used to enable the Chairman
and Clerk to visit Brussels in May 1998 to pursue our European
Structural Funds inquiry, and, together with Members of the other
Committees engaged in the Quadripartite Committee, to visit Sweden
and Washington DC as part of that Committee's inquiries.
34. On most of our overseas visits we divide into
two, or even on occasions three, groups for a significant part
of the time. For example, we were able to undertake visits to
each of the three Baltic states at the same time by sending a
party of three Members to each, resulting in our report to the
House in July 2000.[23]
On our recent visit to Turkey, one group of Members spent a day
in south eastern Anatolia in pursuit of our continuing inquiry
into the Ilisu dam project, while another group visited Yalova
to be briefed on UK involvement in post-earthquake reconstruction
there. We have found that visits by small groups of Members often
work best. Large groups can present difficulties for hosts. Division
into smaller groups enables the Committee to increase the number
of subjects it can cover in a limited timescale. It makes better
use of that scarcest of commodities, the time of Members, and
gives individual members a greater opportunity to participate
in discussions. We would welcome the removal of any practical
or financial obstacles to division of committees for the purposes
of visits in the UK or abroad, even to below quorum levels.
Cross-cutting inquiries and overlap
with other committees
35. We conducted a joint inquiry with the Defence
Committee in 1998 into defence procurement and industrial policy.[24]
We held a joint oral evidence session in June 2000 with the Foreign
Affairs Committee. We have also formed part of the so-called Quadripartite
Committee inquiries into Strategic Export Controls; our secretariat
has provided the support for that inquiry. We have heard evidence
on several occasions from Ministers from departments other than
DTI, including one unusual session of three Ministers from the
DTI, the Treasury and DETR. There have been occasions where the
work of other departmental select committees has impinged on our
work somewhat more than we might have wished; the same may well
be true in reverse. Our greater concern arises from the potential
for overlap of a potentially destructive sort with committees
in the House of Lords. Although we have avoided most problems
through one or the other committee standing aside, we consider
that the Liaison Committee might give some thought to mechanisms
to avoid overlap between the two Houses, all the more as the reformed
House of Lords may seek to expand the scope of its committee operations.
1 HC 300 of Session 1999-2000 Back
2 ibid,
paras 51-5 Back
3 See
p 24 for list of Orders so laid Back
4 p
8 Back
5 pp
1-2 Back
6 p
4 Back
7 p
28 Back
8 p
40 Back
9 p
5 Back
10 p
8 Back
11 p
42 Back
12 p
22 Back
13 p
36 Back
14 p
7 Back
15 p
26 Back
16 p
27 Back
17 p
30 Back
18 p
18 Back
19 p
27 Back
20 p
37 Back
21 Sixth
Report, Procedure for Debate on the Government's Expenditure
Plans, HC 295 of 1998-99, para 50: First Special Report, HC
388 of 1999-2000 Back
22 Eg
pp 9-18 Back
23 p
18 Back
24 p
30 Back