ABSTRACT
Committees are pervasive; they are seen in all types of parliaments: old or new; large or small. The growth of committees is essentially a global phenomenon (Shaw, 1997). As Longley and Agh (1997, p.3) observe, ‘Parliamentary committees figure prominently on all continents and in most countries of the world, increasingly serving as the main organising centre of both legislation and parliamentary oversight of government’. Committees allow the legislature to perform numerous functions that otherwise might not be conducted at all (Benda, 1997, p.17). They are capable of offering MPs a variety of rewards and opportunities, such as encouraging them to build up a more specialised knowledge of policy areas (Emy, p.406), providing a means of keeping them busy and feeling useful (Rush, 1983, p. 151) and granting them more active and rewarding participation in the governing process (Jogerst, 1993, p.26). Committees thus matter.
