When I was a member of the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Renewal Bill, we occasionally had problems maintaining a quorum. Under the rules for a quorum, three MPs had to be present; this in some meetings proved difficult to maintain. When there was just three in attendance and one rose to leave (it was usually the same MP on each occasion), one or more of the clerks rushed after him to persuade him to stay. There was never a problem with maintaining the requisite number of peers.
I was reminded of this at this evening’s meeting of the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill. It is a 26-member committee and the quorum requires at least four MPs to be present. The Minister, Mark Harper, was giving evidence and had not finished when some MPs left and the clerks realised there were only three remaining. (There was no problem with the number of peers.) There was a brief panic, a short adjournment in case another MP could be found, and then when one did not materialise the session was closed.
The initial plan had been to take the minister’s evidence in one session last week. When we did not get through all the questions we wanted to put, he agreed to return this week. It now looks as if he will be making a third appearance to cover the questions we did not manage to reach this evening.
Lord Norton,
It must be wonderful that the Peerage are so exalted a form of life that doubtless you and the did not become irritated as other homo sapiens might have had this been a board meeting, faculty session or boy scout council thus aborted… Doubtless seizing on the benefits of added preparation.
I have always thought that “Select” Committees should be called “Scrutiny” Committees;
so here I sense that such Committees’ constitution & rules should in turn be scrutinised;
I mean, that a mere three or four, only-partly-democratic citizens (MPs,) should in some sense hold the whole 65 million British Subjects’ Lives & Properties, Needs & Hows, and Futures as well as Presents and Pasts, in there free-to-come-and-go individual persons and whims, needs some considerable public study;
innit ?
It’s a good thing everybody does not turn up; that would be a demo…… ’bout the same size as the anti-capitalists at St Paul’s cathedral.
@Lord Norton:
Some may say, ‘you should never look a gift horse in the mouth.’