Procedures Committee, 07 Sep 1999
Meeting date: Tuesday, September 7, 1999
Official Report
135KB pdf
Standing Orders Comparators
Barry Winetrobe has produced a paper on parliamentary comparators, which explains where people should look to find examples from other Parliaments. It is simply a matter to be noted. Are we happy with the paper, and with the list of comparators on the second page?
I will certainly use the hypertext links in the on-line version. The purpose of having the resources that Barry has very helpfully produced is to consider from time to time what other Parliaments do in the same circumstances.
I had a fascinating discussion with a couple of the American representatives who were here last week. I know that the bible—the book of precedents for the House of Representatives—is on the table in front of the convener. The representatives said that they were bogged down in precedent and spent the first half of every meeting deciding what they could do before they did anything, but some interesting little points came out of the conversation that could give us ideas and reasons for doing or not doing things. We should not refrain from asking Barry and his colleagues to tell us what others are doing, or from looking ourselves, and considering how that influences our thinking. Possibly research—referring to academic sources in other countries—would be useful to find out the thinking behind standing orders, in terms of precedent or activity.
Are we all agreed on that? All right.