HOUSE OF LORDS - United Kingdom Parliament

Instructions
11.07 The House may amend, amplify or restrict a committee’s orders of
reference at any time by passing an instruction, e.g. to consider (or not to
consider) a certain aspect of the matter, to give certain parties an
opportunity to give evidence, or to report by a given date. An instruction
may be mandatory or permissive.
Membership
11.08 The Committee of Selection 1 selects and proposes to the House
the membership of select committees, with the exception of the
Committee of Selection itself and committees on private legislation. 2
11.09 There is no formal rule on the political balance of committee
membership, and in most cases no fixed number of members.
11.10 The Chairman of Committees may propose to the House,
without reference to the Committee of Selection, members of the
House to fill casual vacancies on select committees. 3
Rotation rule
11.11 In order to secure a regular turnover of membership, a “rotation
rule” 4 operates in the case of most committees, whereby members who
have been appointed (or co-opted) for a given number of successive
sessions (or parts of sessions) may not be reappointed in the following
session. The House Committee is subject to a five-session rotation rule.
All other committees of the House are subject to a four-session rotation
rule; the four sessions may be extended to allow a member appointed as
Chairman a three-session term as Chairman. The following committees,
which meet only rarely, are exempt from any rotation rule—
Joint Committee on Consolidation etc. Bills 5
Joint Committee on Tax Law Rewrite Bills
1 SO 63.
2 Unless the Chairman of Committees or two or more members of the Committee of
Selection think otherwise: SO 63(2).
3 SO 63(7).
4 Procedure 1st Rpt 2005–06.
5 Procedure 2nd Rpt 2006–07.
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