What are select committees and how do they work? Video Lecture | How does UK Parliament's Education Service works? - Personal Learning

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order order welcome Prime Minister it's
your first appearance before the liaison
committee cert committee is a group of
members from all parties elected by
their fellow members to carry out the
scrutiny function of the House of
Commons most of them are linked to a
particular government department they
scrutinize a department like the
Treasury like the Justice Department
some are overarching like the
environmental audit or Public Accounts
but they are the scrutiny function of
the House of Commons and the mechanism
for exercising it what do you say to the
argument that's been made that that
might be an inducement to families to
break up reasons for breakup are are
pretty wide it's a real opportunity to
get into the detail and really to look
at how the laws that we're passing will
make a difference in practice to
people's lives and that's really
different from a lot of the work in the
chamber which is much more about making
a political point because he went too
far and too fasted on 20% cuts in
policing but he's wrong the association
of the chief police officers I'm talking
about frontline officers so he's simply
wrong about the debates we hold in my
chamber don't really last long enough
for us to examine in any great depth a
select committee can devote several
weeks if not months to examining a
particular issue we also have pars that
allow us to take evidence from anybody
what we choose and then we usually
produce report with recommendations
which hopefully the government will take
out most select committees have 11
members and those 11 members reflect the
party political balance in the House of
Commons the chair is elected by MPs
across Parliament's and then individual
parties elect their own members of the
committee by party so I was elected by
all the other Labour MPs behind the
scenes the clerk's do lots of
preparation work for the committee and
they help them to scope the inquiry to
digest the evidence it's received they
help the committee prepare for the oral
evidence sessions and then they help
them with the drafting of their report
they say quotes a cultural looking after
passengers when things go wrong is not
yet second nature in the rail industry
sometimes that's the news agenda can
drive what select committees look at
sometimes it's the legislate program or
that particular department but select
committees can sometimes pluck things
out of the year if we really might want
to be much more proactive they look at
an issue that the government is not
planning in legislating for but perhaps
they think that the government should be
first of all can I
not only giving myself but giving my
deceased mum the voice that she
desperately needed once the committee
has decided on a topic it will draft a
list of questions those questions are
then publicized widely in a call for
evidence the main way that committees
announced their inquiries is by putting
up a press release and very often the
specialists place will will pick it up
we do have a website and I use Twitter
and I use Facebook so we have moved into
the 21st century in terms of trying to
get it out there to people some of the
people who have written in and submitted
written evidence will be invited to give
oral evidence there are usually half a
dozen evidence sessions and there are
asked questions by the committee based
upon the evidence that they have
submitted could I just begin by asking
you is Barclays too big to fail there's
some real serious work done in select
committees it's an important part of the
parliamentary system it does provide a
huge amount of information to Parliament
and the broader public the select
committees are much more consents you'll
they work much more across parties to
try to make sure that whatever we may
think of the the politics behind our law
that law works as effectively as it
possibly can that's very different from
the way that we are when we're meeting
each other in the debating chamber
there's no doubt that whilst we will try
and delay fast on any cost increases to
our customers there are substantial cost
pressures they can do a lot more than a
member of parliament can do on the floor
of the house in particular they can get
in public officials civil servants
members of the public people who are
affected by the policies of departments
and question them in detail as well as
questioning ministers ministers in front
of a select committee can't get away
with a glib political answer they're
being asked questions by people who have
quite a bit of a knowledge of the
subject area and they've got to give
answers which would steel properly with
the
which raised take George Osborne's first
budget we made clear as a committee we
were going to look at the distributional
impact of the budget and in
unprecedented detail this is our first
opportunity to cross-examine the
Chancellor as I say we're grateful to be
coming along as a result George Osborne
responded by giving a lot more detail
not only in the budget but then also
when he came before us and there was
some pretty vigorous and detailed
exchanges about the distributional
impact of the budget in that hearing I
think everybody gained from that
experience
it certainly enabled a wider public to
find out exactly what was going on in
the budget the government was forced to
explain its actions
well my overall objective of course was
to create a set of measures progressive
one of the things about select committee
is that we follow the evidence we don't
just pluck things out of the ear it's
not just because one person has said
something that we take that at face
value we do interrogate the evidence we
do make sure that we get a range of
evidence from different opinions and we
need to follow where the evidence leads
us
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how prepared was the government before
the volcanic ash incident one of the
things that we looked at was how
governments respond to emergency
situations we decided we'd look for a
number of topics swine flu the volcanic
ash issue a cybersecurity attack and the
impact of solar flares
we weren't drilling down into the detail
of the science we were looking at the
preparedness of government departments
to deal with such an emergency and
making sure that if an event did occur
structures were properly in place to
mitigate the effect of the emergency I
think there was a gap because there was
not a statistician member of sewage I
was very impressed that although
apparently many of the members didn't
have any you know a direct scientific
background their grasp of his shoes was
really very astute how evidence-based
was the government's reasonable
worst-case scenario I think the broad
thrust of the report will be accept
accepted and I'd be very surprised if
there isn't a letter from the Minister
confirming that government is on board
with most the recommendations we're
making the MPs are saying that
scientists need to be closer to the
heart of government and the governments
of whatever color need to listen to them
more closely
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I want to tell you about a new inquiry
that our committee has launched into the
governance of professional football
clubs and to explain why we want your
input we're looking at the whole issue
of the way in which football is run the
reason the inquiry came about is because
there is a great deal of concern
particularly at the number of clubs
suffering from high levels of debt many
have got huge financial problems and the
government itself had said at the
election that it wanted to try and
encourage more supporter involvement and
so our inquiry very much is what
improvements could be made and how the
government can take forward its
commitment that it made obviously we're
centered in Westminster but I've always
felt that it's important if possible
that select committees should get out
and visit other parts of the country
both so that we can demonstrate what
we're about and also because you do get
a different point of view so we've come
to Burnley which is a representative
Club in the Football League December
last year the contract our organization
supporters direct represents 170
supporters trusts who are interested in
supporter involvement in football club's
football governance football finances
we've been campaigning on these issues
for 10 years and the committee invited
us to give oral evidence after we
submitted our own written evidence and
so it was our chance to get the fans
view over to the committee as they
consider these issues a large proportion
of it is obviously made up in salaries I
thought their questions was with
integrity I thought they were with
interest
I think they genuinely care about the
game they have a passion about football
which was very good from grassroots to
the very top of the game I actually
enjoyed it immensely as an experience
because if you're passionate about these
issues you've been given a platform to
speak to some very important people who
can make some pretty big decisions and
it's your opportunity to make your point
it's all very well saying we want to
leave it to the discipline of the club
to manage its own risk the record says
that English football clubs collectively
are pretty appalling judges of risk you
know these are influential individuals
and the fact that they are talking about
this area it means that it's something
that they consider to be important we
are going to be making recommendations
to government we've already had the
Sports Minister say that he's waiting to
see those before making up his mind what
he should do so I hope that they will
prove very influential price to come to
give evidence here today the Clarkes
were very helpful they they told us a
long time in advance when the meeting we
would be likely to be taught before so
you can clear your diary they were very
good at making it clear what the expense
and renumeration was so you don't have
to worry about how much it's gonna cost
you to get there and that's quite
reassuring for often small organisations
but not very big budgets and there near
the time the Clarkes gave us an
indication as to what the committee's
line of questioning to us specifically
might be so the support was extremely
helpful for someone like myself who's
never done anything like this before a
good witness is someone who comes
knowing what he wants to say said it and
then when he's asked questions answers
them directly and with precision rather
than flattening or playing for time or
hoping to get through the two hours if
that's how long they're up for it's not
courtroom questioning and doesn't need
to be you may be simply trying to find
out from people who work in a particular
area what it's like for them so you
don't want to treat them like hostile
witnesses it was an experience that I
welcomed I enjoyed and I think clearly
you know the committee members were well
informed and we're very very measured
very calm in a very very informal in
their questioning if you're a witness I
think the thing to think about is what
would I like this committee to remember
I had said when I've walked out of for
the room what's the thing I would like
them to go away having become aware of
that perhaps they hadn't really thought
about before I prepared in the sense of
trying to get down the the points that I
wanted to make to a single sentence or
at most two sentences
and and I knew which points in advance I
wanted to try to get in as part of the
answers it's a tremendous opportunity
for people who've got something to say
to say it to the people who can actually
make a difference and to get it on the
record and if you're invited to give
evidence I'd always say to witnesses
grab it with both hands after the report
is published the government have to
respond to the committee's conclusions
and recommendations within eight weeks
that response is published it's put in
the public domain and depending on the
nature of that response the committee
can decide whether or not it wishes to
investigate any issues further
well-thought-through inquiries can go a
long way to setting the agenda around
which decisions are taken I like to
think that the Treasury Select Committee
which I chair has had a hand in
influencing the structure of the
legislation for the creation of the new
body called the Office of Budget
Responsibility rather than wait for the
government to produce their legislation
we sat down and worked out what we
thought it should contain and published
a report and I'm pleased to say that in
large measure the legislation that the
government finally came out with
reflects the proposals that we made in
that report I know that the Treasury
select committee have raised a number of
concerns one of those being the location
of the OPR and also whether the veto
over the chairmanship that the Select
Committee has will be on the face of the
bill yes the veto which is given to the
Treasury select committee I think this
is the first of its kind in this
Parliament is one that will be enshrined
in the legislation I've always found
amusing just how often and people from
the despatch-box sort of fare back to
select committee reports and see what
some of the recommendations might be and
you can get people in the back benches
even from the government side seem you
know if it's a good enough
recommendation why is the government not
doing that so it can be used to push the
government in the right direction some
time ago the committee which I chair
issued a very critical report about
gasps which is the body that is meant to
support children when they're involved
in in court proceedings about family law
and the result of that very critical
report was that the entire board was
asked to resign and a fresh start was
made so you can't get quite a dramatic
response to a committee report
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committees are good for government when
government is forced to explain its
actions and when by doing so they
improved their act if they don't counter
them to anybody than in the end you'll
get Authority governments that - they
show the parliamentary process at its
best
thorough thoughtful reasoned not all
about political point-scoring really
concerned for the real-life impact of
the laws that we pass in Parliament
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a lot of the time there is a rewarding
sense that some things are changing
because of the work that is done
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in terms of the scrutiny of the
executive select committees are vital I
think they do a really important job and
I think Parliament would be pure without
them and the government make
off-the-hook easier if they didn't exist
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you