Select committees spend most of their time taking evidence, mostly oral evidence in public session, though a good deal of time is taken up reading written submissions. 

 When a committee decides on an inquiry, it puts out a call for evidence and anyone wishing to submit evidence is free to do so.  This may produce a few submission or a great many.  The evidence is normally published and, if extensive, may be published in a separate volume.

The Joint Committee on the Draft Constitutional Bill, as will be apparent from my earlier posts, spent a great deal of time taking evidence.  Our report was published at the end of last month.  The volume of evidence was published this week. As might be expected, it is a substantial volume.  Given its size, it is probably best read in paper form, but it is available online at:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200708/jtselect/jtconren/166/16602.htm#evidence

I suspect only a masochist will wish to read it cover to cover, but it is well worth dipping into.  There is a mass of valuable material on the different parts of the Bill, including the competing evidence we received on the role of protests in Parliament Square and on the role of the Attorney General.  Whereas it was possible to follow the oral evidence at the time it was given, this is the first opportunity to see all the written evidence that was submtted.

Among the things that struck me from the evidence – both at the time we took the evidence and again in re-reading it – was the number of politicians who are often quite radical in their views on parliamentary reform but who were vehement in their desire to get rid of Brian Haw’s permanent protest in Parliament Square.