The Scottish Grand Committee is a
committee
A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
of the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the 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 parliament. T ...
. It is not a
select committee (see
Scottish Affairs Select Committee), 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 ...
(72 MPs prior to 2005).
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 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
*substantive debates on the adjournment
*half-hour adjournment debates at the end of each sitting (chosen by ballot)
*the power to meet in Scotland
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. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
. However, since the creation of the
Scottish Parliament 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 Committee last met in November 2003. For several years it met at the
Old Royal High School in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
. The retention of the Scottish Grand Committee was agreed by the House of Commons on 21 October 1999.
Chairmen
*1987–1997
Michael Martin (
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
)
*1997–2001
John Maxton
John Alston Maxton, Baron Maxton (born 5 May 1936) is a Scottish Labour Party politician. From 1979 to 2001 he was a backbencher Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons.
Early life
He is a nephew of the former Independent Labour Pa ...
(Labour)
*2001–2003 Various chairmen
See also
*
Parliamentary committees of the United Kingdom
The parliamentary committees of the United Kingdom are committees of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Each consists of a small number of Members of Parliament from the House of Commons, or peers from the House of Lords, or a mix of both, ap ...
*
Northern Ireland Grand Committee
*
Scottish Affairs Select Committee
*
Welsh Grand Committee
References
External links
Grand Committees - UK Parliament website
Committees of the British House of Commons
Grand Committee
{{UK-gov-stub