One way to hold this term: start with the word 'select'. A large body of lawmakers cannot look closely at everything, so a few of them are picked out and handed one subject — schools, defence, online safety — and told to look at that and nothing else. Picture a small room, a long table, and people being called in to answer questions about one thing. What comes out of the room is not a law and not an order. It is a report: this is what we found, and this is what we think you should change. The same shape is used on both sides of the Atlantic; what differs is who does the picking and how long the group lasts.