The House: Urgency gives and urgency takes away

Parliament had some interesting select committee hearings scheduled this week. But when MPs got down to business on Tuesday the committee hearings schedule largely went out the window when the House voted to invoke urgency.

Urgency allows the government to move bills through the House more quickly, by enabling longer days of debating with no stand-down period between each of a bill's stages of consideration. Select committees, which usually meet in the mornings, get benched during urgency, since the House takes precedence.

So when urgency starts committees, stop. Urgency must cause chaos for the schedules of committees and submitters alike. RNZ's The House asked the Clerk of the House of Representatives, David Wilson about the rules and history around this. You can listen to the audio version of this story at the link below.

The Clerk, David Wilson, says that there are a few specific times that Parliament's rules say committees cannot meet, including during Oral Question between 2pm and 3pm on sitting Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. All MPs are expected to be in the debating chamber during these times.

"[Select committees] can meet at other times when the House is sitting, but only with the leave of the committee, which is unanimous agreement."

So, if committees can give themselves permission to meet and continue business when the House is sitting under urgency, why don't they agree to meet?

"If there are people coming from out of town to give evidence, they might agree to meet," says Wilson. But they tend not to, other than squeezing into the gaps around the House schedule. "Committees during urgency tend to meet either before 9am (before the House convenes), or in the [lunch] break between 1pm and 2pm… but it's pretty unusual for committees to meet while the House is sitting under agency."

The reason permission is seldom given, as Wilson indicates, is "mostly political considerations".

You could see this as a tit-for-tat response by an opposition - a direct retaliation to a government deciding to use urgency.

"I think the feeling is, it's a political decision really that they're not going to assist the government further by progressing its business in the House and in committees at the same time… and that is common regardless of who the government is or who the opposition is. That's just the way it's played out over many years."

In summary, a government can choose to speed up progress of its legislation in the House, but doing so will slow down progress on other bills in select committees.

There is a second, slightly easier option for gaining permission to meet - the Business Committee. The Business Committee is a cross-party committee that arranges many aspects of Parliament's business. Unanimous consent is not required in the Business Committee, but it's pretty close. Agreement requires what the committee calls "near unanimity", which means most of the parties, including both major parties, have to be on board. In reality that is similarly unlikely.

Background, history and exceptions

Parliament's mornings weren't always preserved for committee meetings. Until the 1980s the House met on Thursday mornings. That was altered to give more time to committees, which Wilson says "coincided with the growing importance and prominence of committee work".

The House and committees can now (theoretically) operate simultaneously because, in the MMP parliament, very few MPs attend the debating chamber for any one debate. Those present are predominantly party whips, and MPs rostered to speak by those whips. In this Parliament there tend to be more National Party backbenchers in attendance than necessary.

Parliament's rules for a quorum require both a presiding officer (eg a Speaker), and a government minister. That's it. Interestingly, no Opposition MP is required for the House to meet and vote. This prevents oppositions from stymieing parliament by refusing to attend.

Prior to MMP, MPs had to be ready to attend the chamber with only a few minutes' notice, in order to vote in person.

"When all votes were personal votes", says Wilson, "[they were] cast by going into the lobbies. And also when there tended to be fewer time restrictions on debates, [debates] were longer, more members spoke in any one debate than they do these days."

There are a few committees that don't need permission to meet when the House is sitting. They are not the subject select committees (those that inquire into governments' performance and legislation). Instead they are specialist and technical committees.

David Wilson lists them.

"The Offices of Parliament Committee, the Petitions Committee, The Privileges Committee, the Regulations Review Committee, [the Business Committee], and the Standing Orders Committee can all meet during a sitting of the House without leave… These are specialist committees, and they often need to meet at times when the other committees are not meeting. They've got senior members on them. They'll often meet in an afternoon on a sitting day… They're generally happy to get together and work through their business, which is not doesn't seem to be contentious like the bills and scrutiny in front of subject committees."

While select committees meet on both Wednesday and Thursday mornings, each committee only meets on one of those days. Parliament has so few available MPs that some must double-up and serve on two committees. To enable that, only half the committees can meet at once.

RNZ's The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament's Office of the Clerk.