Lifecycle of Parliamentary Documents: United Kingdom
A. Types of Parliamentary Documents
There are numerous forms of parliamentary documents in the UK. These include working papers of Parliament that encompass bills and Hansard, the written record of Parliament; papers and reports that are produced by Parliament and its committees such as select committee reports and standing orders (the rules that govern the conduct of business in both chambers); and papers presented to Parliament from outside bodies, such as annual reports of government departments, reports from inquiries, and reports from the National Audit Office.
Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice, a leading treatise on the workings of Parliament, describes a class of documents as parliamentary papers and divides these papers into four categories:
- business papers, which record debates and decisions and set out future business;
- bills and associated documents;
- papers laid before Parliament by external bodies, such as government departments, often in accordance with statute or at the request of one or the other House; and
- papers reported to Parliament by committees or others within Parliament to whom one or both Houses have delegated particular responsibilities.[1]
The National Archives states that the term “parliamentary papers” refers to documents that are laid before (that is, formally presented to) Parliament.[2] The online provider of government documents, the website gov.uk, which is administered under the auspices of the National Archives, refers to three types of “official documents”: Command Papers, House of Commons Papers, and un-numbered Act Papers.[3]
There are a number of Acts of Parliament that require papers to be laid before either the House of Commons, House of Lords, or both. These are referred to as Act Papers, and they differ from Command Papers, which are laid by command of the government. A paper cannot be laid as both an Act Paper and a Command Paper, and it is the responsibility of the government organization laying the paper to ensure that it is done by the correct authority.[4]
After a paper has been laid before the chamber, it appears in the Appendix to the Votes and Proceedings, which is published overnight at the end of each sitting day. The Votes and Proceedings is the formal legal record of what happens in the House of Commons.[5] The Votes and Proceedings is later compiled into the Journals of the House of Commons, which are the “permanent official record of the proceedings of the House.”[6] The Journals of the House of Lords
- ↑ Erskine May, Parliamentary Practice ¶ 7.1, https://perma.cc/9P82-FGE9.
- ↑ The National Archives, Parliamentary Papers Guidance 5 (last updated Sept. 2015), https://perma.cc/G6DJ57ZY.
- ↑ Id. at 23.
- ↑ House of Commons Journal Office, Guide to Laying Papers ¶ 9 (Aug. 2017), https://perma.cc/U8WP-CCKD.
- ↑ Id. ¶ 8.
- ↑ Erskine May, supra note 4, ¶ 7.15.
