Rotation rule and the length of the current session
1.A rotation rule operates in the case of most select committees of the House in order to secure a regular turnover of membership. Operation of the rule is such that members who have served for three successive sessions (or parts of sessions) may not be reappointed in the following two sessions.1
2.The Companion to the Standing Orders (para 11.14) states that “The rule is based on the duration of a session being approximately 12 months. In the event of a significant variation from this term the Committee of Selection may consider making ad hoc adjustments”. The current session began on 21 June 2017 and has therefore lasted for 24 months so far. As a result, a number of current committee members will have served for terms of almost four years, which is significantly in excess of the usual term length.
3.Accordingly, the Committee of Selection has agreed that the rotation rule should be applied on 1 July 2019, so as to ensure a degree of turnover in committee membership. A number of motions will be moved in the House on 1 July, in order to rotate off committees those members whose terms have expired, and to replace them with new members.
4.The end date of the current session is not yet known. The service of any newly appointed select committee member between now and the end of this session would usually count as ‘a session’ for the purposes of the rotation rule. Should the session end in the near future there is, therefore, the potential for particularly short periods of service to be taken as counting towards the rotation rule for a number of members.
5.In view of this, the Committee has agreed that, for newly appointed members of committees, service in the remainder of this session will not be counted towards the rotation rule, unless the session extends beyond 1 January 2020. Adopting this date as a cut-off point ensures that new members will be entitled to a minimum term of six calendar months before their service becomes reckonable for the purposes of rotation.
6.The remaining sections of this report, which is presented for the information of the House, provide details of anticipated changes in committee membership (including, where indicated, those resulting from member resignations) and composite lists of the membership of each committee affected by these changes.
1 The rule applies to the European Union Committee as a whole, so that no member may serve for more than three sessions across all of its sub-committees. The European Union Committee applies the rule directly to its sub-committees.