Have Your Say: Calls for Evidence
A Select Committee call for evidence is an opportunity for committee members (MPs or Peers) to collate views from different groups. This process informs a committee’s scrutiny of Government, and allows them to provide policy recommendations. However too often ordinary members of the public do not feed in their own valuable experiences and opinions into these forums.
So we’re taking a monthly review of the select committees currently asking for evidence in the hope that more members of the public grasp the opportunity to engage and influence policy.
How to submit evidence
- Find the select committee inquiry you would like to contribute to.
- Read their call for evidence carefully, look at the questions they’re asking and pick out the ones you’d like to answer (you don’t have to answer every question!).
- Write a short introduction about you/your organisation (50-100 words). This should explain your link to the subject – tell the committee why they should listen to you.
- Set out the answers to the questions in a document. Make it clear which question you’re answering, and keep your contribution short and to the point.
- Try to substantiate your evidence with facts and research – committees love this.
- Once you’re finished, pick out the three or five key messages you want people to take away from your evidence and put these as bullet points at the very top of your evidence.
- Submit your evidence via the inquiry document portal.
What happens next
Any evidence submitted evidence will be sorted through and read committee staff. They’ll try to understand the key themes/findings recurring throughout the many pieces of evidence they receive, and present this to the committee members (MPs or Peers). Committee members themselves may also read through some of the individual pieces of evidence too.
Committee staff also make recommendations about who the committee should invite to give ‘Oral Evidence’, so if your evidence is really interesting you may be asked to meet with the committee where they can question you about your experience and opinions in person (or virtually!). This is usually broadcast on Parliament TV.
After a few oral evidence sessions committee members will produce a report based on what they’ve heard and read. This will contain some recommendations to Government on what should be done. The Government must then respond to the committee.
