Public bill committees LEGISLATION

Question 1

What are public bill committees

Answer 1

These are committees that are ad hoc set up to scrutinise each bill passed to its second reading

theyre made up of 18-25 MPs that go through legislation line by line and suggest amendments to legislation.

MPs can write to these committees and try table amendments allowing more legislation to pass through the HOC to speed up the legislative process.

Question 2

What are points in PBC

Answer 2

• Membership is designed to reflect the hoc so if theres a majority there will be a majority in committees.
• the chief whip from each party decides which mps sit in which pbc.
• since the 2006 reform they can call for witten and oral evidence (call for persons and papers)
• they dont deal with financial bills.

Question 3

strengths of public bill committees

Answer 3

• They only need a simple majority for amendments to pass
• since the 2006 reform they can call for witten and oral evidence (call for persons and papers) allowing better recommendations to be given due to better expertise
• they do speed up the timetable
• opposition mps sit on every committee so theres an element of open debate.

Question 4

How are public bill committees named

Answer 4

They are named after the relevant bill eg: the equality bill committee

This is to make it clear that the committee is established purely to consider that bill

Question 5

What are weaknesses of public bill committees (1)

Answer 5

1. They are temporary 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 6

What are weaknesses of public bill committees (2)

Answer 6

2. The guillotine motion can restrict time: the government can pursue a motion in the commons to further restrict the time a Pbc has to consider a piece of legislation at the committee stage.

Question 7

What are weaknesses of public bill committees (3)

Answer 7

3. It’s not only MPs from the governing party who have been seen as an obstacle to effective scrutiny of legislation but also committee members from the opposition parties who have to contend with their own party whips.
   Often a partisan approach is taken to participation in a Pbc and the former Labour MP Paul Flynn writing in his book (how to be an MP) claimed that opposition MPs are lectured that their own influence is the ability to delay government bills. They are urged to fill time spaces with words whose main purpose is to gum up the works

Question 8

What are weaknesses of public bill committees (4)

Answer 8

4. Once are limited to the time they have to consider and scrutinise legislation as their timetable is determined by the government and as such 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 on the focus and detail of the bill and given the technical nature of legislation it can prevent effective scrutiny