The Collaborative International Dictionary
Committee \Com*mit"tee\, n. [Cf. OF. comit['e] company, and LL. comitatus jurisdiction or territory of a count, county, assize, army. The word was apparently influenced by the verb commit, but not directly formed from it. Cf. County.] One or more persons elected or appointed, to whom any matter or business is referred, either by a legislative body, or by a court, or by any collective body of men acting together.
Committee of the whole [house], a committee, embracing all the members present, into which a legislative or deliberative body sometimes resolves itself, for the purpose of considering a particular measure under the operation of different rules from those governing the general legislative proceedings. The committee of the whole has its own chairman, and reports its action in the form of recommendations.
Standing committee. See under Standing.
Wikipedia
In the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Committee of the Whole House is a committee of the whole of one of the two Houses.
In the House of Commons, the Committee of the Whole House is used instead of a standing committee for the committee stage (clause-by-clause debate) of important or contentious bills. The Finance Bill is always sent to a committee of the whole House in the Commons. The sitting is presided over by the Chairman of Ways and Means, rather than the Speaker of the House.
In the House of Lords, the Committee of the Whole House examines the majority of bills.
Usage examples of "committee of the whole house".
Walpole laid before a committee of the whole House his scheme for the restoration of public credit, which was, in substance, to ingraft nine millions of South Sea stock into the Bank of England, and the same sum into the East India Company, upon certain conditions.
Upon the 22nd of January 1720, the House of Commons resolved itself into a Committee of the whole House, to take into consideration that part of the King’.