Parliament

Speaker's Panel of Chairmen

I have been a member of the Speaker's Panel of Chairmen since 1996.

The Chairmen's Panel is a group of Members of Parliament appointed by the Speaker to chair General Committees.  General Committees are actually Standing Committees but were given a new name which came into effect on the 15th November, 2006.   They include Public Bill Committees (which examine Bills before Parliament), Delegated Legislation Committees (which consider Statutory Instruments) and European Standing Committees (which examine Community documents and matters remitted to them by the House of Commons).

Each Committee is assigned a Chairman and the members debate Bills as they would do in the Commons chamber, with broadly the same rules of debate applying. 

Members of the Chairmen's Panel also chair sittings in Westminster Hall and I have chaired Westminster Hall on numerous occasions.

Occasionally, at the request of the Chairman of Ways and Means, members of the Panel may also take the Chair during Committees of the whole House in the chamber.

As Chairmen of Committees have to remain impartial, I am unable to vote on the Bills that I have chaired when they come before the House of Commons for debate.

Bills and Statutory Instruments that I have chaired in the last 12 months include:

 

• Planning Bill Committee
• Delegated Legislation Committee on draft Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000
• Statistics and Registration Service Bill
• Delegated Legislation Committee on Taxation
• EU Committee on Voluntary Reduction of Direct Farm Support Payments

• Finance Bill (including chairing on the floor of the House)
• EU Committee on Financial Services Policy
• Statutory Instrument on Personal Pension Schemes
• Delegated Legislation Committee on Electoral Commission
• Delegated Legislation Committee on Waste Packaging
• Standing Committee on National Insurance Contributions