The Politics of Select Committee Assignments in the British House of Commons

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge M. Fernandes ◽  
Thomas Saalfeld ◽  
Carsten Schwemmer
Keyword(s):  
House Of Commons ◽  
Select Committee ◽  
Committee Assignments

scholarly journals Identity inferences: Implicatures, implications and extended interpretations

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 424-445
Author(s):  
Billy Clark
Keyword(s):  
Impression Management ◽  
Video Recording ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Select Committee ◽  
Communicative Acts ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
And Performance

This article considers how ideas from relevance-theoretic pragmatics can be applied in understanding the construction of identity in interaction, while presupposing that consideration of ideas about identity can make a significant contribution to pragmatic theories. While previous work on pragmatics has focused on the construction and performance of identity, this has not been much discussed in work from a relevance-theoretic perspective. For illustration, the article refers mainly to a video recording of a UK House of Commons Select Committee session on drug addiction. While the video provides considerable relevant data about identity construction, the article does not develop a detailed analysis of the video or the extracts it focuses on. Instead, it uses them to argue for the usefulness of relevance-theoretic ideas in understanding identity and impression management. The ideas focused on are that communication can be stronger or weaker (i.e. it can be more or less clear that particular assumptions are being intentionally communicated), that there is no clear cut-off point between very weakly communicated implicatures and non-communicated implications, that interpretation generally involves going beyond what the communicator intended to derive the addressee’s own conclusions, that the effects of communicative interaction include more than the derivation of new assumptions and that adjustments to ‘cognitive environments’ (the sets of assumptions which are accessible to individuals at particular times) can continue after interactions take place. These ideas can be useful in a number of areas including in understanding identity in general, literary identities, attitudes to language varieties, the production of communicative acts and the teaching of spoken and written communication.

Decimal Numeration and Decimal Coinage

1854 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 216-236
Author(s):  
William Thomas Thomson
Keyword(s):  
House Of Commons ◽  
Present Stage ◽  
Select Committee ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Decimal Numeration

The Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the subject of “Decimal Coinage,” of 1st August 1853, sets entirely at rest any doubt or question as to the great advantages and facilities which would be afforded by the adoption of a system of decimal numeration and decimal coinage.That the change will accordingly be made, I feel confident; and as the basis of the new arrangement, as well as the method of carrying it out, are of vast importance to the public at large, and in business generally, I have considered it a fit subject of deliberation for this Institute. It may be said that we should have taken an earlier and more prominent part in originating and promoting a change of system, of the importance of which we had individually, I may safely assume, been long convinced; but I am inclined to think that we have wisely reserved our opinions, and that they will be more valuable in the present stage of the discussion (now that the Report of the Select Committee, and the evidence taken before them, has been published), than they would have been earlier in the day.

Remarks on Trawling

1895 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 307-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
M'Intosh
Keyword(s):  
House Of Commons ◽  
Select Committee ◽  
Blue Book

Fully ten years having elapsed since the Report on Trawling on the eastern shores was presented to the Trawling Commission (composed of the late Earl of Dalhousie, chairman; Right Hon. Edward Marjoribanks, M.P., now Lord Tweedmouth; Prof. Huxley; Mr. W. S. Caine, M.P.; and Mr., now Sir, T. F. Brady), it appears to be desirable to review the statements contained therein in the light of the information which the impetus given by the Commission has produced. Moreover this examination of results is all the more nececssary, since last year another important body—viz. the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Fisheries, presided over by Mr. Majoribanks, M.P.—issued a new blue-book containing the finding of the Committee, and a mass of evidence.

Select Committees: Understanding and Regulating the Emergence of the ‘Topical Inquiry’

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 879-902
Author(s):  
Craig Prescott
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Procedural Fairness ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Select Committee ◽  
Opportunity To Respond ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Private Corporations ◽  
Accountability Gap

Abstract Reforms to departmental select committees have enhanced their authority and independence within the House of Commons. Some committees have used this enhanced profile to investigate the actions of specific individuals or private corporations or organisations. Typically, this is in response to media reports that allege some form of wrongdoing. As the standing orders of the House of Commons empower committees to scrutinise government departments and agencies, this is a departure from established practices. This article examines the emergence of these ‘topical inquiries’, determining the features that indicate their value. In particular, topical inquiries that fill an ‘accountability gap’ are the most valuable. An accountability gap arises when other forms of scrutiny or accountability are merely performative or have failed. When conducting a topical inquiry, committees are underpinned by parliamentary privilege, meaning that those subject to criticism have little opportunity to respond regardless of any reputational, commercial or other damage caused. Consequently, if thought a desirable function of Parliament, then topical inquiries require enhanced processes to ensure procedural fairness and to address potential human rights concerns. This would require amending the standing orders specifying topical inquiries as a type of inquiry that a select committee could pursue, complying with this enhanced process.

Parliamentary privilege and the broadcasting of Parliament

Legal Studies ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia M. Leopold
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The State ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Select Committee ◽  
The Absolute

After years of debate, and pages of parliamentary reports, the House of Commons has agreed in principle to allow the televising of its proceedings, both in the Chamber and in Select Committee hearings.’ The purpose of this article is to consider the application of parliamentary privilege to the broadcasting of Parliament by radio or television. The issue of parliamentary privilege arises because of the absolute privilege’ of freedom of speech for Members, which enables them in the course of ‘proceedings in Parliament’ to say or do something which, had it been said or done elsewhere, could have given rise to civil or criminal liability by the person concerned. Absolute privilege exists because it is of outstanding public importance that Members should be able to speak their minds, and this outweighs any consequential harm that may be suffered by an individual or the State. Examples of the use of the protection of absolute privilege are the making of a statement that appears to be defamatory, and the oral commission of one of a variety of criminal offences.

The Evidence Given Before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Lunacy Law, 1877

1878 ◽  
Vol 23 (104) ◽  
pp. 457-525
Author(s):  
T. S. C.
Keyword(s):  
Medical Profession ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
General Question ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Select Committee ◽  
The Public ◽  
Personal Liberty ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Special Points

Most of our readers are aware that on the 12th February, 1877, on the motion of Mr. Lewis L. Dillwyn, M.P. for Swansea, a Select Committee was appointed by the House of Commons, “To enquire into the operation of the Lunacy Law, so far as regards the security afforded by it against violations of personal liberty.” That Committee consisted of Mr. Stephen Cave, chairman, Dr. Lush, Mr. Woodd, Mr. Ramsay, Mr. Leighton, Mr. Tremayne, Mr. Herschell, Mr. Goldney, Mr. Joseph Cowen, Mr. Kavanagh, Mr. Butt, Mr. Birley, Mr. Hopwood, Sir Trevor Lawrence and Mr. Dillwyn. It was generally understood at the time, and came out more clearly in the course of the enquiry, that the chief reason for the appointment of this Committee was the fact that strong statements as to the inefficiency of the present Lunacy Acts for the protection of the personal liberty of sane people had been confidently made and most industriously circulated among the public and Members of Parliament by a few persons and a small society, who said they could produce facts in support of their statements. It was generally understood at the time, and came out also during the enquiry, that most of those persons had had personal experience of the deprivation of personal liberty authorised by these laws. It certainly could not be truthfully said that there was any kind of public excitement on the subject of lunacy, or any public demand for an enquiry, nor had any lunacy cause célèbre occurred recently to draw attention to the subject. To most persons engaged in administering the Lunacy Laws, the appointment of the Committee came as a surprise, and most of them, at least in the provinces, did not look on it in any kind of serious light. We fear they thought of it chiefly as a sop thrown to satisfy a few noisy importunate lunatics who were at large, so that few of them offered their evidence, or made any preparation to lay the results of their experience before the public. To this is due the fact that the non-official persons who gave their evidence before the Committee seemed to have been taken quite at hap-hazard, and that there was no proper representation of the different classes of persons who administer the Lunacy Laws, or have to do with lunatics throughout the country. Far too many of certain kinds of people were examined by the Committee, and far too few of others. This is self-evident when, in looking over the list of witnesses, one finds that 17 out of the 59 witnesses were Government officials; that out of the 26 members of the medical profession examined, all but three were specialists, and 14 were London men. The medical profession in general, apart from the specialty of psychiatric medicine, were as nearly as possible unrepresented, for only one of the three of their body was examined on anything but special points connected with individuals. And this in an enquiry as to how the Lunacy Laws affect the liberty of the subject, when 180,000 people have been certified insane and their liberty taken from them by the general body of the profession, under the authority of the Lunacy Act of 1845 ! of that great body of medical officers of unions who certify nearly all the pauper lunatics, not one was brought before the Committee. Out of that most intelligent, public-spirited and large minded body of country gentlemen who compose the Committees of Visitors of the County Asylums, and who have had the whole labour of carrying out the Lunacy Acts in the English Counties, only one was examined on any general question. Not a single Visitor of a provincial licensed house was called to be examined as to how their work was done. Not a single independent representative of the legal profession, which has practically so much to do in carrying out the Lunacy Acts and managing the property of the insane, was asked to give his evidence. The whole body of Poor Law Guardians, who levy the lunacy rates, and represent the public as regards their expenditure, were conspicuous by their entire absence. One might have thought that a few really recovered lunatics could have been got to give a true and impartial account of their treatment while insane. As for Ireland, not a doctor but Inspector Nugent, not an official of any Asylum, public or private, not a governor of an Asylum, not even a half-cured Irish lunatic, appeared to tell how the insane of that country are treated. Scotland was represented by its two Medical Commissioners, and one asylum physician from the provinces. Surely one or two of the Sheriffs, those all important officials by whose signatures every lunatic in Scotland is deprived of his liberty, might have been got to speak for themselves as to whether they acted “ministerially” or “judicially;” and whether they read the doctors' certificates through or not, before they signed their orders.

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