The Scottish Grand Committee is a

committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

. It is not a select committee (see

Scottish Affairs Select Committee The Scottish Affairs Select Committee is a Select committee (United Kingdom), select committee of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The remit of the committee is to examine the ...

), but rather a grand committee composed of all 59

Scottish MPs Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

(72 MPs prior to 2005). The Scottish Grand Committee's function is to oversee UK Parliament bills specific to

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. For several years it met at the Old Royal High School in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

History

It has its origins in a Scottish standing committee set up in 1907 to consider the Committee Stage of exclusively Scottish bills. Its remit was widened in 1948 to include consideration of bills "in relation to their principle" and up to six days of Estimates debates. In 1957 up to two days of Matter Day debates was added and Committee Stage consideration was transferred to a small Scottish Standing Committee. In operation bills under debate were normally limited to Scottish MPs, but voting was open to all UK parliamentarians. So in practice at decision time, UK MPs for other home nations would fill the chamber and often vote down any proposals put forward by the Scottish MPs. In July 1994, a number of new procedures were introduced in the SGC which provided for: *questions to be asked of the Secretary of State *statements by, and subsequent questions to, any

Minister of the Crown Minister of the Crown is a formal constitutional term used in Commonwealth realms to describe a minister of the reigning sovereign or viceroy. The term indicates that the minister serves at His Majesty's pleasure, and advises the sovereign ...

*substantive debates on the adjournment *half-hour adjournment debates at the end of each sitting (chosen by ballot) *the power to meet in Scotland However, since the creation of the

Scottish Parliament The Scottish Parliament ( ; ) is the Devolution in the United Kingdom, devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. It is located in the Holyrood, Edinburgh, Holyrood area of Edinburgh, and is frequently referred to by the metonym 'Holyrood'. ...

none has been presented, and consequently the Committee has met only occasionally since. It is not a defunct body, however, as a Scotland-only UK Parliament bill is still theoretically possible. The retention of the Scottish Grand Committee was agreed by the House of Commons on 21 October 1999. The Committee last met in November 2003. In February 2020, the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic party. The party holds 61 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and holds 9 out of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, ...

suggested that regular meetings of the Scottish Grand Committee be revived to ensure that the actions of the UK Government in relation to Scotland are properly scrutinised.

Chairmen

*1987–1997 Michael Martin ( Labour) *1997–2001 John Maxton (Labour) *2001–2003 Various chairmen

References

External links

Grand Committees - UK Parliament websiteScottish Grand Committee
Committees of the British House of Commons Grand Committee {{UK-gov-stub

History

Chairmen

See also

References

External links