There are 3 types of parliamentary committee in the UK:

1

Select

These are long-term committees that investigate and scrutinise subjects/departments/policies, via:

Holding private meetings (where they choose inquiries, discuss evidence, and make decisions).
Holding public oral-evidence sessions (where they question ministers, officials, experts, etc.) Click me
Receiving written evidence (from organisations / individuals who have been invited to write).
Making reports/recommendations (after deliberating privately) which the government often responds to.
Correspondence (ie. having back-and-forth exchanges with ministers/departments/companies/regulators).
Fact-finding visits, public engagement (eg. surveys).

2

General

These are commons-only committees set up to deal with a specific item of business/legislation, with membership appointed for that particular task.

This is an exhaustive list of the different types of general committees:

Public Bill Committees (examine Bills line by line)
Delegated Legislation Committees
Second Reading Committees
Committees to consider Bills on Report
Commons Grand Committees
- Scottish Grand Committee
- Welsh Grand Committee
- Northern Ireland Grand Committee
Regional Affairs Committee
European Committees

3

Lords Grand Committee

This is an alternative debating forum for the House of Lords where Bills are scrutinised in detail line-by-line (but no formal votes are taken — decisions must be unanimous).

Illustration of a parliamentary committee room: committee members seated around a curved table, facing witnesses at a table opposite.

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Setting up the committee room…

This session in a nutshell

What this is

Parliamentary committees publish full transcripts of their evidence sessions, but they are long and formal. This page retells one session as a short dialogue you can step through at your own pace.

Wording is simplified, exchanges are condensed, and several committee members’ questions may be merged into one voice — nothing here is a direct quote. For the verbatim record, follow the official transcript link: official transcript ↗.

Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0 ↗. This is an independent project and is not endorsed by UK Parliament.