There is a parliamentary select committee for each department of state. Their purpose is to scrutinise policy and performance, as well as to consider -in expert detail- the problems and issues that each department is -or ought to be- addressing. These committees have powers to summon witnesses and evidence, and they can employ experts to advise them.
Membership of a select committee comes with an additional workload in terms of the reading and visits required in preparation for weekly evidence sessions, followed by lengthy negotiation over the contents of the committee reports. Parliament publishes attendance statistics for each committee. (I don’t often blow my own trumpet, but hey, nobody else is going to: So, for the entirety of the last parliament my attendance at the at the Work & Pensions Select Committee was an unmatched 100%.)
Places on select committees are allocated by an algorithm to ensure that they broadly represent the composition of the Commons itself. Nevertheless, unlike business in the Commons chamber, the objective of each committee is not just to secure a majority, rather it is to reach a consensus. Each committee represents the whole House of Commons and a report of a select committee is undermined if it is not the unanimous report of the whole committee.
The Chairmanship of each committee is critical. It is a position suited to a highly skilled and authoritative person with the benefit of an established track record. Accordingly, the Chairman only has a casting vote in the proceeding of the committee and, in recognition of their workload, receives a significant increment to their salary.
Of course, strongly led select committees are not necessarily to the Government’s advantage: they often give ministers a pretty hard time.
As with membership, so with chairmanships: they are divided up between the parties on a formula mirroring the composition of the Commons. Essentially, the choice of which party gets which chairmanship however, is down to the governing party, with the exception that the chairman of the Treasury Select Committee is, by convention, always a member of the governing party, and the Public Accounts Committee is always chaired by a member of the Opposition Party.
Now, when I was first elected in 1997, both the membership and the chairmanships of select committees were controlled by the whips offices. It certainly suited the government to ensure that the chairmen of the select committees in its gift were in the hands of someone trusted to ‘toe the line’. I recall a couple of tremendous rows when the Blair Government nominated individuals who were clearly ‘unexpected’ appointments, substituted to replace incumbents that had established a formidable reputation for independence of mind.
When the Coalition Government arrived in 2010, we changed the system: both the chairmen and the members of select committees had to be elected and not merely chosen by whips. Each party had to elect their allocated number of members, but the chairman had to be elected by the whole House: To be successful a candidate would need support from well beyond their own party.
Where a party has such an overwhelming majority however, the new mathematics in the Commons potentially changes everything.
What I have found particularly surprising is that my support is now being solicited for the chairmanships of select committees by brand new Labour members who have never even previously sat on one. They are seeking to supplant senior party colleagues that established a reputation based on their record. Well, that’s democracy: We still have free choice between the candidates and their merits.
The ‘word on the street’ however, is that this novelty is being encouraged the by the Government whips in the hope that potentially ‘difficult’ and independent-minded chairmen’ might be replaced by ‘trusties’.
I can offer no evidence. But it would be a great shame if the reputation of robust select committees were to be neutered.