HC Deb 07 August 1857 vol 147 cc1223-5
MR. NEWDEGATE

said, he wished to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman in the chair, relating to one of the Standing Orders of the House which requires that a list of all Committees with the names of all the hon. Members serving thereon should be posted up in some conspicuous place in the lobby of the House. He held in his hand the list of hon. Members at present serving on the Committee on Oaths. He found the Members nominated by the House correctly given. There were then these words added, "and all Gentlemen of the Long Robe, Members of this House." It was perfectly true that was the form in which the Committee was granted by the House, but the Standing Order under which the List was given was in the following words:— Lists are to be affixed in some conspicuous place in the Committee Clerk's office and in the lobby of the House of all Members serving on each Select Committee. Now this was a Select Committee, and not a Committee of Privileges. And it appeared to him, that the standing order of the House could only be complied with by the names of those hon. Members who actually served upon the Committee being given in the list from day to day. The Committee of Privilege had long been discontinued. It was once revived in 1847, and then consisted of all "knights of shires, all Gentlemen of the Long Robe, Members of the House, as well as burgesses." In fact, that was a Committee of the whole House. But the present Committee was not a Committee of Privilege, and came under the Standing Order which he had read. At this time of the Session it was very probable that a great many members of the legal profession would be absent. It was impossible under the general category of Gentlemen of the Long Robe to know what hon. Members might attend. He understood that a large number had attended as members of the Long Robe, but he confessed he did not exactly know who came under that description—whether it was intended to apply to all gentlemen admitted to the bar, but who had long ceased to practise, or only to such gentlemen at present in practice at the bar. He thought as there was that doubt the Standing Order should be complied with, and the List made to comprise not only the names of Members nominated on the Committee, but the names of Members who, under the designation of Gentlemen of the Long Robe, were serving on the Committee. The composition of the Committee was not such as to create in his mind the impression of its being totally unbiassed, but he relied on the fact that under the category of Gentlemen of the Long Robe a sufficient number of gentlemen would attend who, being members of the legal profession and well known, with high reputations to lose or maintain, would carry out the intentions of the House, which he conceived to have been to constitute a sort of Judicial Committee to decide a point of law. He thought he could not exaggerate the importance of the precedent established by the appointment of this Committee, or the danger and impropriety of the House being kept in ignorance of how its appointment was fulfilled, and therefore he ventured to ask whether the House would not be furnished with a correct list of all those who served upon the Committee.

MR. SPEAKER

replied that, in his opinion, everything that could be done by the Officers of the House, of what the House intended to be done under the Standing Order referred to by the hon. Gentleman, had been accomplished by the printing of the names in the manner which they were each day printed. The hon. Gentleman would observe that the List mentioned in the Standing Order was prospective,—a list of those Members who were appointed to serve upon a Committee—and not retrospective, or a list containing the names of the Members who might have served the day before. Those names, that is, the names of all who have attended, are entered daily in the Minutes of the Committee. The directions of the House in the present instance were that certain nominated Members, and all Gentlemen of the Long Robe, should serve on the Committee, and when a list was given of all the nominated Members, it appeared to him that the orders of the House had been carried into full effect. If the hon. Gen- tleman thought that something more was necessary he must, in order to effect his purpose, obtain the sanction of the House to a substantive Motion.