Rt Hon George Howarth MP, Chairman of
the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill (M 72)
The Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill
was established by Order of the House on 12 December 2005, after
the Bill had received its Second Reading. As with previous Select
Committees established to consider Armed Forces Bills, we were
provided with powers similar to a departmental Select Committee—to
receive oral and written evidence and to undertake visits in the
UK and abroad. Our primary role was to consider the Bill, amend
it if necessary, and report it to the House. The Committee could
also publish its conclusions and recommendations in a Special
Report.
Our predecessor Select Committee on the Armed
Forces Bill, in 2001, noted that its inability to undertake the
clause by clause consideration of the Bill in public was a hindrance
to its scrutiny of the proposals. In response to those concerns
the Government provided, in the Motion establishing this Committee,
for a procedural innovation that allowed us to conduct the formal
clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill in public. The Committee
decided to take advantage of that power, and to conduct that formal
consideration in a manner that followed Standing Committee procedure
as closely as possible.
THE COMMITTEE
AGREED TO:
Meet in a Standing Committee Room
Meeting in a Standing Committee room helped
the Committee "shift" into a Standing Committee frame
of mind.
An Order of Consideration motion
The Committee agreed a formal Order of Consideration
motion to allow it to consider the Schedules with the Clauses
that introduced them. Agreeing a formal Order of Consideration
motion also enabled the Committee to alter the order in which
it considered the bill when that became appropriate.
An informal timetable
The Committee decided against creating a formal
timetable but agreed an informal timetable for the consideration
of the Bill. Our meeting times were more flexible than for a Standing
Committee. An informal timetable was a necessity given that we
had no binding programme motion. The allocation of time for consideration
of the Bill would be a potential area for difficulties for more
contentious bills.
A time limit for tabling amendments
The Committee agreed to adopt the two day time
limit for the tabling of amendments, as is the case in Standing
Committees. This time limit has the benefit of ensuring that amendments
are printed at least once prior to their being considered in the
Committee.
Chairman's provisional grouping of amendments
The Chairman of this Committee had no power
of Selection, and therefore there was no authority under which
amendments could be rejected. The Committee agreed that the Chairman
should suggest groupings of amendments.
Publish an amendment paper
Arrangements were made to produce an Amendment
Paper that was included in the Vote bundle. The Committee's amendments
appeared on the blue notice papers on the day after they are tabled,
and on white paper on the day of the meeting.
A verbatim record of proceedings
Arrangements were made for Hansard to take a
verbatim report of the proceedings, which was published in the
same way as Hansard of a Standing Committee. It would be unacceptable
for there to be no official report of proceedings given that the
Select Committee was meeting in public.
We undertook the initial part of our work—taking
oral evidence—in the same way as any other Select Committee.
The majority of the oral evidence was provided by MoD and the
Armed Forces. The Committee undertook two UK visits and one overseas
visit to Cyprus, Oman and Iraq. The presence of a Minister on
the Committee did not appear to affect the questioning or answers
provided by witnesses. The Minister attended all but one evidence
session, but did not question witnesses.
The overseas visit was a highlight for those
Members who took part. The visit provided an opportunity for Members
to "gel" as a Committee. The programme consisted mainly
of informal discussions with officers and men. Those discussions
were particularly useful and probably provided us with more frank
views than structured briefing, or question and answer sessions
would have done.
The Committee was accompanied during the visit
by members of the bill team, all but one of whom were members
of the Armed Forces. The Committee took advantage of the opportunity
to have informal discussions with those who knew the Bill best;
and that provided not only a clearer understanding of the effect
and intention of the legislation; but also may have diminished
concerns among Members about the level of Service involvement
in developing the proposals in the Bill. I think other select
committees might find such close contact with officials beneficial.
I believe Members found that approximating our
proceedings as much as possible to the familiar Standing Committee
format helpful. The lack of chairman's powers did not impede the
Committee. The goodwill generated on the visit survived into the
Standing Committee phase and helped the Committee come to agreement
on an informal programme, which it stuck to.
When the Committee came to consider the draft
Special Report, party political differences became more apparent.
This may be inevitable, particularly for a Committee that will
not have to continue to work together once it has completed agreeing
the report.
The approach we adopted for this Bill was beneficial
to our scrutiny of an unusually large and complex piece of legislation
by the standards of Armed Forces Bills. We agreed as a Committee
that the approach should be applied to future Armed Forces Bills
and could usefully be considered for politically uncontentious
legislation of appropriate scope and scale that scrutiny would
profit from select committee style evidence-taking.
May 2006
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