Select Committees

Role of Select committees Select committees are probably the most effective way that Parliament has to scrutinise the government. They are there for the life of the Parliament (5 years) to watch over a particular department’s: Spending (ie how efficiently and effectively they spend the money they are allocated by the Treasury) Policy (how well thought out are the policies that the department has been proposing?) Administration (how well is the department being run?)

There are select committees covering every major department of state There are select committees covering every major department of state. They generally meet every week for the length of the parliament. Meetings last on average 2 hours. MPs will be working on their Select Committee work throughout the week, as well as their normal constituency work, and any other Parliamentary groups they may be on.

How is the membership of Select Committees decided? The chairs of Select Committees used to be selected by the leaders of political parties – they would be given a proportional number of the committees depending on the make-up of Parliament. Whips used to use this as a way of controlling wayward MPs – a method of giving incentive to follow the party line. This has now been reformed, and the Chairs of Select Committees are now chosen through election of all members of the House. This means that to be a Committee Chair, an MP must command support from across the House – not just their own party. This has helped to make Select Committees less part controlled. It also means that opposition MPs can be chairs of committees – not all committees will be chaired by a member of the governing party.

Each party is designated a certain number of seats in each committee – depending on the party’s size within the House of Commons. So the idea would be that a government that commanded more than half of the seats in the House, would have more than half of the seats in each committee. This is supposed to be done proportionally and is a way of making sure that all sides of the house are represented. The members of each committee are chosen in elections within parties. So, for example, the Conservatives may be allocated 6 members on the culture committee – the Conservative party would hold an election where Conservative MPs would get to vote for which Conservative MPs would get to fill those 6 spaces.

This system can have somewhat illogical results though. For example, the SNP is entitled to a member on every Select Committee – even the ones that are about matters that are devolved. So the education Select Committee in Westminster has an SNP member, even though the Select Committee’s reports will have no effect in her constituency – as education is a devolved matter. Then there is the fact that, although the SNP won 56 out of 59 seats in Scotland, they do not have a majority on the Scottish Affairs Select Committee. Most of the members on it are from English constituencies.

Select Committees are a lot less party based than other aspects of the House. To watch them at work, you would find it difficult to know which party each MP is from. They work in a much more collegiate, consensual and grown up way. There are 3 committees which have more female than male members – education, health and women & equalities

What Kind of work do select committees do? Select Committees are the most important way of scrutinising the government, and they generally do this in three ways Full Inquiries Narrow Reports Pre-Appointment Scrutiny

Pre-Appointment Scrutiny Start off with this one, as it is the quickest. The government has the ability to appoint lots of public servants to carry out various jobs –heads of big departments, like MI5, Chiefs of Police, Head of the BBC. There’s loads of these jobs. This kind of power of “patronage” is quite significant for the government, as it could potentially allow a government to fill public service positions with its own supporters, without necessarily thinking about who would be best for the job. Select Committees now have the important power to scrutinise applicants for certain jobs – like the education committee gets to interview the applicant for Head of the Inspectors in England and Wales. The government will still gets its way in appointing the candidate it has chosen, but at least the Select Committee get to go on record with their thoughts.

Narrow Reports Frequently special issues will arise that can be dealt with quite quickly in committee in a short report. The committee will call for evidence, they may see witnesses, or call for written statements, then write a report on the issue. Recently the Education Committee have carried out narrow reports on Holocaust Education and Careers Advice in schools.

Full Inquiries These are significant pieces of work which can take months or even years of a parliamentary session. First of all a topic is chosen, which has to be agreed on by the members of the committee. This could be steered by something which is big in the news, or on the national agenda – like the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World a few years ago, or the under-achievement of white working class children in education. Then the committee will go through the stages of collecting evidence. This is a lengthy process. They may call witnesses. If a witness is called to an inquiry, they must attend. Rupert Murdoch (who is a billionaire media baron who owns the Sun newspaper) tried to get out of attending the Select Committee meeting which was carrying out the inquiry into phone-hacking. He was compelled to attend by the committee, which technically could have sent the Sarjent-at-Arms round with his sword to lock Murdoch in the Tower of London. Technically.

Select Committees are not seated in the same oppositional way as the House of Commons. Instead of having the two sides facing each other across a room, they sit around a horse-shoe shaped set of desks. When taking evidence from witnesses, all meetings are broadcast on the internet, and they are also open for members of the public to attend, this is to help ensure that the process is transparent for citizens. The Select Committee members ask questions, and the witnesses reply. The Members are helped to write questions by the Clerk of the Committee who will be an expert in the subject area, and will brief members and will help to keep them updated on all advances. The committee will also take written evidence from the public. Anyone who has an opinion or some knowledge/experience of an issue, can write to the committee. A recent inquiry into Sex Education in England and Wales received 400 written submissions, and all were published online, once again, to ensure openness.

When they have finished taking evidence, the committee puts together a report with their main findings – this will include recommendations of actions that the government should pursue. The report is published and the media may pick it up – although this generally depends on the level of “newsworthiness” of the issue. The reports are generally accepted to be authoritative statements on government inadequacies/actions The government have to respond to the report, if they do not do so within a reasonable amount of time then the minister responsible can be recalled and made to explain themselves.

The report cannot force the government to act though – it is only an evaluative statement of the issue that has been studied. Nonetheless, a study by the LSE found that 40% of Select Committee recommendations are accepted by the government, and 1/3 of recommendations which are calling for significant policy changes do succeed

Conclusion Select Committees are the grown up face of parliament, where the most significant work of scrutiny goes on. There have strengths in terms of being more independent from party influence, and having committed backbench members who develop experience and expertise over the course of their membership. The election of Chairs by secret ballot brings more independence, and the ability to compel witnesses to attend can bring media attention to an issue. However, there are weaknesses, as a party with a majority in the House will still have a majority in committees, and many reports are published with very little public attention. The committees do not have the power to compel the government to act on their recommendations, and fewer than half of their recommendations are ever put into action.