1 Introduction
1. Select committees play a key role in ensuring
the accountability of Government to Parliament, and through Parliament
to the electorate. Across a wide range of topics—regional
government, private equity firms, pensions, Afghanistan, the Lisbon
Treaty, train fares—select committees make a vital contribution
both to parliamentary scrutiny of, and the wider public debate
on, government policy and actions. They have an increasingly high
public profile, with their work regularly attracting significant
media attention.
2. In this Report, we review the work of committees
in 2007 and summarise the work of the Liaison Committee itself.
364 Members served on select committees in the 2006-07 Session,
with committees holding 632 public meetings and publishing 345
substantive reports.[1]
It is not our intention to describe the work of committees in
great detail—information about each committee can be found
in their annual reports, listed at Annex 1.[2]
Instead we highlight some of the most significant achievements
of committees in the past year, and comment on issues that are
relevant to the work of all committees, including the resources
available to them.
3. Scrutiny is carried out by the 18 committees which
correspond to government departments, and by others such as Environmental
Audit, Public Accounts, Public Administration or Regulatory Reform,
whose work cuts across all ministerial responsibilities. Human
rights, another cross-cutting issue, is covered by a joint committee
with the Lords, the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
4. As we noted in our Report last year, in order
to do their job properly committees need:
- full cooperation from ministers
and officials;
- access to information and witnesses,
resources to assess the information they receive, and
- adequate public awareness of
their work.
Our role, as the Committee which brings together
all the chairmen of the House's select committees[3]
is to seek to ensure that these are available. Our members work
together to champion parliamentary scrutiny. We support committees
in their work, and where possible strengthen their capacity for
carrying it out.
5. We have extended our role as a line of communication
between committees and the Government, making sure the needs of
committees—for instance, the importance of access to officials
and information—are clearly conveyed to ministers, via regular
correspondence and meetings with the Leader of the House. We are
grateful to the current Leader, Rt Hon Harriet Harman, and the
former Leader, Rt Hon Jack Straw, for their readiness to cooperate
with our work and take account of the concerns of select committee
chairmen as they develop the Government's proposals in areas which
affect Parliament. We have also valued being able to give oral
evidence to the Modernisation Committee.
6. In 2007, we have been particularly engaged with
the Government's Green Paper, The Governance of Britain,
which raises many issues of importance for Parliament and its
committees.[4] We address
some of these in the course of this Report. We expect to continue
our dialogue with the Government about the Green Paper in the
coming months. We comment on our own activities at the relevant
points of our survey of committees' work in 2007.
7. We have also continued to discharge our own scrutiny
role through regular evidence sessions with the Prime Minister.
In 2007, we held three such meetings: two with the former Prime
Minister, Rt Hon Tony Blair, and one with his successor, Rt Hon
Gordon Brown.
1 Sessional Returns, Session 2006-07, HC 1 Back
2
Some committees did not publish an annual report on their work,
but instead wrote to the Chairman. These letters are published
as appendices to this Report. Back
3
Excluding the Select Committee on the Modernisation of the House
of Commons, which is chaired by the Leader of the House. Back
4
Ministry of Justice, The Governance of Britain, Cm 7170,
July 2007 Back
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