COMMITTEE REPORTS

You may need to identify a committee report using the name of the committee chairman. The following items can help:

British government publications : an index to chairmen of committees and commissions of inquiry. Four volumes. Located in the Main Reading Room reference collection at RF 328.42 R513

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers in eResources (1801-1996). Search by Chair/author. A list of these is also available

Parliamentary papers include the working papers of Parliament. Details can be found on the parliament.uk website.

The British parliamentary paper set in the National Library of Australia is a major research collection for the history and development of Great Britain and its colonies, including Australia.

House of Commons, House of Lords and Command papers

Whenever the Houses of Commons or Lords requires the submission of a report and orders it to be printed, the resulting document is issued in a numbered series of House of Commons papers or House of Lords papers. They are sometimes prefixed by the initials HC or HL but usually only the paper number is quoted. A new numbering is begun for each parliamentary session.

Command papers are so called because they are presented "by command of Her/His Majesty." Command paper numbering is continuous over several years with prefixes C, Cl, Cd, Cmd, Cmnd or Cm allocated to different time periods. They are bound in with the House of Commons papers up to session 1976-1977. To retrieve a command paper before that date, the session and volume number need to be quoted. See the parliament.uk website for more information.

What does the National Library hold?

HOUSE OF COMMONS AND COMMAND PAPERS

Publication Time Period Access links
House of Commons sessional papers of the eighteenth century 1715-1800 1715-1800
Many papers for this period are also included in the Journals of the House of Commons and Journals of the House of Lords. See Parliamentary Business
CAC Sq 328.42 GRE
Individual papers in this series may be located through the chronological and alphabetical indexes in volumes 1 and 2.
Reports from Committees of the House of Commons 1715-1802 CAC Sef 328.42 GRE
Visit our eResources portal and search for the resource U.K. Parliamentary Papers under the Browse eResources tab.
Reports from Committees of the House of Commons which have been printed by order of the House and are NOT inserted in the journals 1803-1806 mfm 1314
Microfilm
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP Online) 1801-1900 Visit our eResources portal and search for the resource U.K. Parliamentary Papers under the Browse eResources tab.
Parliamentary Papers (House of Commons and Command) 1797-1976/77
Almost complete holdings.
CAC Sq 328.42 GRE
Parliamentary papers (House of Commons and Command) 1731-1800/10 mp 6
Microprint
House of Commons papers 1977/78-2012/13 CAC Sq 328.42 GRE
Command papers 1978-2012 CAC Sq 328.42 GRE
Command Papers can be accessed at GOV.UK From 1993 to present (earlier dates imperfect) Online

HOUSE OF LORDS

Publication Time Period Access links
House of Lords sessional papers 1714-1805 CAC Sq 328.42 GRE
House of Lords sessional papers - Microfilm 1806-1859 mfm 901
Sessional papers of the House of Lords 1806/07-1984/85
Holdings imperfect
CAC Sq 328.42 GRE
Papers 1985/86-2012/13 CAC Sq 328.42 GRE

IDENTIFICATION OF PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS

Parliamentary papers may be identified and located through the following indexes.

Publication Time Period Access links
Hansard's catalogue and breviate of Parliamentary papers 1696 to 1834
Lists and summarizes the content of a select list of House of Commons papers and journals.
1696-1834 RF 328.4204 G786
General index to the accounts and papers, reports of commissioners, estimates, &c.&c... 1801-1852 CAC Sq328.42 GRE
Subject catalogue of the House of Commons Parliamentary papers, 1801-1900 1801-1900 RFq 328.42 GRE
Index to the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers 1801 - 2004 Visit our eResources portal and search for the resource U.K. Parliamentary Papers under the Browse eResources tab.
General alphabetical index to the bills, reports, estimates and papers... 1852-1899 328.42 GRE
General index to the bills, reports and papers printed... 1900 to 1948-49 1900-1948/49 RF 328.42 G786
General alphabetical index to the bills, reports and papers printed...1969-70 to 1978-79 1969/70-1978/79 Sq 328.42 GRE
Numerical finding list of British command papers published 1833-1961/62 1833-1962 RF 328.4201 D559
British command papers: a numerical finding list 1962/63-1976/77 1962-1977 YY 015.41 M119

FAST FACT

The Treasury needed to save money after the First World War, and one means was to prescribe an octavo size for Command Papers instead of the larger foolscap size. Some material (e.g. many statistical documents) became non-parliamentary for this reason. In 1922, only 229 Command Papers were presented, compared to 718 in 1908. The royal octavo size was standard until the late 1980s. See Command Papers, Fact Sheet 13.

RELATED ERESOURCES

You can access these resources by visiting our eResources portal and searching for each one under the Browse eResources tab.

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers includes over 200,000 House of Commons sessional papers from 1715 to the present, with supplementary material back to 1688 (subscription; Library log in required).

Publications from www.gov.uk, the official source for Command and departmentally sponsored House of Commons Papers (free online).

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