The Permanent Deputation, in Spain, is a parliamentary body consisting of a reduced number of members of parliament which assume the legislative powers of the Parliament when it is not in session. The members of this body are chosen proportionally to the number of deputies that each political group has. The chair of a permanent deputation is normally the speaker of the Parliament.
This body cannot be compared to a Parliamentary Committee due to, although it is true that during the meeting periods it has a mere preparatory duties, when the parliament is not active it assumes the powers of the whole Parliament but not by a delegation of the parliament (as it happens with the committees) but by constitutional mandate.[1]
At the national level, each house of the Cortes Generales (the Spanish parliament) has its own Permanent Deputation, both of them chaired by the speaker of each house.