CALLED TO ORDURE
WITH parliament returning from recess this week, how are the select committees looking after a year of a Starmer government? Or should that be
where
are the select committees? With a few exceptions, the Commons committees have been pathetically quiet since the general election, even while politics at home and abroad has been in turmoil.
Thursday mornings, once prime time for committees, are now often empty save for meetings of the tireless public accounts committee, which has 60 inquiries on the go. Given the security hassles facing members of the public wishing to attend, few committees draw a crowd.
Lobby reporters no longer turn up either, having realised that the education committee under Helen Hayes (Labour, Dulwich and West Norwood) is unlikely to create trouble for secretary of state Bridget Phillipson, and that the home affairs committee under Dame Karen Bradley (Conservative, Staffordshire Moorlands) is not a patch on its lively predecessor in the last parliament.