The chairmen of the Select Committees for this Parliament were announced over a month ago. They include a number of formidable figures – notably Jeremy Hunt chairing the Health and Social Care Select Committtee. Also Greg Clark, a former Business Secretary and before that Science Minister, becoming Chairman of the Science and Technology Select Committee. The chairmanships for select committee were chosen via an electoral system designed to prevent them from being partisan contests. Some chairmanships were allocated to Labour. So only Labour MPs could stand. For others, only Conservative MPs can stand. The Scottish Nationalists were also allocated a couple. But all MPs could vote, by secret ballot.
But when it came to the other members of the committees, the elections were internal. Each Party had a quota of places to fill. So, for example, there would be five spaces for Conservative MPs on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, in addition to the Chairman. The Conservative MPs would vote, by secret ballot, to choose them. For some committees, I understand the MPs were elected unopposed.
The “Exiting the European Union Committee” has now changed its name to the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union and “the Committee’s remit has also been updated to reflect the closure of the Department for Exiting the European Union and now covers matters relating to the negotiations on the future relationship between the UK and EU.” It has a larger membership than the others and we can see that Conservative MPs elected staunch Brexiteers as their representatives.
The Chair and Members of the Committee are:
The names of the Scottish Affairs Committee have yet to be announced. But the other committee memberships are listed below:
The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee:
The Defence Committee :
The Education Committee
The Environmental Audit Committee:
The Foreign Affairs Committee:
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee:
The Health and Social Care Committee:
The Home Affairs Committee:
The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee :
The International Development Committee :
The International Trade Committee :
The Justice Committee:
The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee:
The Public Accounts Committee:
The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee:
The Transport Committee:
The Treasury Committee:
The Welsh Affairs Committee
The Women and Equalities Committee:
The Work and Pensions Committee :
There are various other committees that cover procedural matters – Backbench Business, Standing Orders, Statutory Instruments and so on – which are listed here.