129. Select and Sessional Committees.—Select committees consist, as a rule, of fifteen members and are constituted to investigate and report upon specific subjects or measures. It is through them that the House collects evidence, examines witnesses, and otherwise obtains the information required for intelligent legislation. After a select committee has fulfilled the immediate purpose for which it was constituted it passes out of existence. Each such committee chooses its chairman, and each keeps detailed records of its proceedings, which are included, along with its formal report, in the published parliamentary papers of the session. The members may be elected by the House, but in practice the appointment of some or all is left to the Committee of Selection, which itself consists of eleven members chosen by the House at the beginning of each session. This Committee of Selection, which appoints members not only of select committees but also of standing committees and of committees on private and local bills, is made up after conference between the leaders of the Government and of the Opposition; and the committees whose members it designates are always so constituted that they contain a majority favorable to the Government. The number of select committees is, of course, variable, but it is never small. A few are constituted for an entire year and are known as sessional committees. Of these, the Committee of Selection is itself an example; others are the Committee on Public Accounts and the Committee on Public Petitions.
130. Standing Committees.—Beginning in 1882, certain great standing committees have been created, to the general end that the time of the House may be further economized. Through a change of the standing orders of the chamber effected in 1907 the number of such committees was raised from two to four, and all bills except money bills, private bills, and bills for confirming provisional orders—that is to say, all public non-fiscal proposals—are required to be referred to one of these committees (the Speaker to determine which one) unless the House otherwise directs. It is expected that measures so referred will be so fully considered in committee that they will consume but little of the time of the House. Each of the four committees consists of from sixty to eighty members, who are named by the Committee of Selection in such a manner that in personnel they will represent faithfully the composition of the House as a whole. One of them, consisting of all the representatives of Scotch constituencies and fifteen other members, is constituted with a special view to the transaction of business relating to Scotland. The chairmen of the four are selected (from its own ranks) by a "chairman's panel" of not more than eight members designated by the Committee of Selection. The procedure of the standing committees is closely assimilated to that of the Committee of the Whole, and, in truth, they serve essentially as substitutes for the larger body.[180]
III. Organization of the House of Lords
131. Sittings and Attendance.—It is required that the two houses of Parliament shall be convened invariably together, and one may not be prorogued without the other. The actual sittings of the Lords are, however, very much briefer and more leisurely than are those of the Commons. Normally the upper chamber meets but four times a week—on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 4.30 o'clock and on Tuesdays at 5.30. By reason of lack of business or indisposition to consume time in the consideration of measures whose eventual enactment is assured, sittings not infrequently are concluded within an hour, although, of course, there are occasions upon which the chamber deliberates seriously and at much length. A quorum for the transaction of business is fixed at the number three; although it is but fair to observe that if a division occurs upon a bill and it is found that there are not thirty members present the question is declared not to be decided. Save upon formal occasions and at times when there is under consideration a measure in whose fate the members are immediately interested, attendance is always meager. There are members who after complying with the formalities incident to the assumption of a seat, rarely, and in some instances never, reappear among their colleagues. It thus comes about that despite the fact that nominally the House of Lords is one of the largest of the world's law-making assemblies, the chamber exhibits in reality little of the unwieldiness ordinarily characteristic of deliberative bodies of such magnitude. The efficiency of the chamber is more likely to be impaired by paucity of attendance than otherwise.
132. Officers.—The officers of the House of Lords are largely appointive, though in part elective. Except during the trial of a peer,[181] the presiding official is the Lord Chancellor, appointed by the crown on the advice of the premier. The duty of presiding in the Lords, as has been explained, is but one of many that fall to this remarkable dignitary.[182] If at the time of his appointment an incumbent is not a peer he is reasonably certain to be created one, although there is no legal requirement to this effect. The theory is that the woolsack which comprises the presiding official's seat is not within the chamber proper[183] and that the official himself, as such, is not a member of the body. The powers allowed him are not even those commonly possessed by a moderator. In the event that two or more peers request the privilege of addressing the chamber, the peers themselves decide which shall have the floor. Order in debate is enforced, not by the Chancellor, but by the members, and when they speak they address, not the chair, but "My Lords." Although, if a peer, the Chancellor may speak and vote as any other member, he possesses as presiding officer no power of the casting vote. In short, the position which the Chancellor occupies in the chamber is all but purely formal. In addition to "deputy speakers," designated to preside in the Chancellor's absence, the remaining officials of the Lords who owe their positions to governmental appointment are the Clerk of Parliament, who keeps the records; the Sergeant-at-Arms, who attends personally the presiding officer and acts as custodian of the mace; and the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, a pompous dignitary whose function it is to summon the Commons when their attendance is required and to play a more or less useful part upon other ceremonial occasions. The one important official whom the House itself elects is the Lord Chairman of Committees, whose duty it is to preside in Committee of the Whole.
IV. Privileges of the Houses and of Members
133. Nature and Extent of Privileges.—On the basis in part of custom and in part of statute there exists a body of definitely established privileges, some of which appertain to the Commons as a chamber, some similarly to the Lords, and some to the individual members of both houses. The privileges which at the opening of a parliament the newly-elected Speaker requests and, as a matter of course, obtains for the chamber over which he presides include principally those of freedom from arrest, freedom of speech, access to the sovereign, and a "favorable construction" upon the proceedings of the House. Freedom from arrest is enjoyed by members during a session and a period of forty days before and after it, but it does not protect a member from the consequences of any indictable offense nor, in civil actions, from any process save arrest. Freedom of speech, finally guaranteed effectually in the Bill of Rights, means simply that a member may not be held to account by legal process outside Parliament for anything he may have said in the course of the debates or proceedings of the chamber to which he belongs. The right of access to the sovereign belongs to the Commons collectively through the Speaker, but to the Lords individually. With the growth of parliamentary government both it and the privilege of "favorable construction" have ceased to possess practical importance. Another privilege which survives is that of exemption from jury duty, though no longer of refusing to attend court in the capacity of a witness. Each house enjoys the privilege—for all practical purposes now the right—of regulating its own proceedings, of committing persons for contempt, and of deciding contested elections. The last-mentioned function the House of Commons, however, has delegated to the courts. A privilege jealously retained by the Lords is that