Introduction to joint committees of the Lords and Commons

41.1Joint committees1 are formally composed of separate select committees appointed by each House to work together. Although defined in procedural terms as two committees, they operate as if a single committee, with a single Chair2 and with all decisions made jointly.

With the exception of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, whose Commons members sit also as the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments3 for certain purposes (see para 38.70 ), the two constituent parts of a joint committee do not meet separately in their own House.

Footnotes

  1. 1. For other joint bodies and committees between the two Houses, which are not select committees, see para 41.14.
  2. 2. Exceptionally, the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster had two co-chairs (Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster, Formal Minutes, Session 2015–16, 11 September 2015).
  3. 3. SO No 151(10) [HC].