Public bill committee weaknesses

Question 1

what is the first weakness of PBC (1)

Answer 1

1. They are temporary (Ad-hoc) and only exist until the bill becomes an act of parliament: this is a disadvantage as these committees will lack the expertise that can be developed through membership of a permanent committee. At present a main failing of the committee system is the inability to ensure that committees are staffed with needed expertise.

Only 8% of the places on public bill committees were taken by members who also sat on the relevant departmental select committee.

Question 2

What is the second weakness of PBC (2)

Answer 2

2. The guillotine motion: this is a weakness as the government can further restrict the time a Pbc have to consider a piece of legislation at the committee stage, this causes the legislation to be rushed and not be as effective compared to if it had more time

Question 3

What is the Third weakness of PBC (3)

Answer 3

3. PBC are limited to the time they have to consider and scrutinise legislation as their timetable is determined by the government

Therefore, their path can be altered in the commons as conservative government will choose conservative members to pass or block a bill.

This also means a backbench MP can’t develop detailed knowledge of the bill and given the technical nature of legislation it can prevent effective scrutiny

Question 4

What is a public bill committee

Answer 4

It is a committee that is set up to by the House of commons to examine the details of a particular bills

They are introduced in the late 1800s to save time in the HOC