151  Notice required

An instruction requires notice, and in respect of a committee of the whole may be moved only before going into committee.

Amendment history

Adopted: 20 December 1905 as SO 319B (notice of instruction to committee of the whole)

1989 revision: Old SO 333 renumbered as SO 151 ; expression streamlined

Commentary

An example of a contingent notice for an instruction to a committee of the whole to divide a bill

An earlier standing order agreed to in 1903 applied to instructions to select committees and provided for them to be moved on notice on any day before the committee reported. Parts of it were salvaged for SO 149 but the remaining parts disappeared in the 1989 revision. This standing order, which also provides for an instruction on notice, was adopted in 1905 along with SO 150(2) on which there was extensive debate.[1] There was very little debate on this aspect of the new procedure. Like the special majority in SO 150(2), it was part of the safeguard against business being taken out of the hands of ministers because it ensured that notice would be given and that any instruction to a committee of the whole would be moved at a known point in the legislative process.

Standing order 115(1) provides for a bill to proceed immediately into committee of the whole unless it has been referred to a standing or select committee or a committee stage is not required. Paragraph (2), adopted in 1934 (see SO 115), clarified that an instruction may be moved after the second reading. A notice of motion for an instruction to committee of the whole is not an ordinary notice but a contingent notice, which may be moved contingent on a bill being read a second time.