152 THE BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

Debate. Committee. When the Bill has been read a second time,
it is referred to a Committee. For Bills of great importance,
including all Money Bills, this will be a Committee of the Whole
House; other Bills go to one of the Standing Committees. Four
of these, named A, B, C, D, contain between fifty and eighty
Members, the parties being in the same proportion as in the
House; a fifth Committee is the Scottish, containing all the v
Members from Scotland and from ten to fifteen others. Members
are appointed to Committees by the Committee of Selection
which is set up at the beginning of each Session; it has eleven
Members, six of whom are Government supporters. Committees
meet in the morning, when the House is not sitting, or in the
afternoon. The Scottish Committee takes all Bills relating only to
Scotland; A, B, C, and D do not specialise in any one subject.
However, only about two-thirds of a Committee's members
are a permanent nucleus: to these twenty or so are added
for each Bill, and remain with the Committee while that Bill
is under consideration: so each Bill secures the attention of a
certain number of specialists in its subject-matter. The Speaker
appoints for each Committee a Chairman, under whose guidance
the Committee examine the Bill clause by clause, sometimes
consulting with the Minister who is in charge of it. The distinction
between parties is not so sharp in Committee discussion as in
debates in the House. There will be certain points on which
the Government supporters will stand firm, but very considerable
modifications are made as a result of Opposition pressure. The
public often under-estimate the amount of work done by M.P.*s
because they do not realise how much is done in Committee;
most newspapers only report Committee work when a point of
special news-value arises. The Private M.P. has, indeed, more^
opportunity of using his abilities in Committee than in the
House, where much of the Debate is arranged by the Whips
and the result is a foregone conclusion. It is probable that
Committees could do their work more easily if they were smaller;^
this would permit an increase in the number of Committees,