Select committees begin to take shape

Labour has chosen most of its foot soldiers for select committee work and there are some names to watch

It seems like aeons ago that most of the House of Commons select committee chairs were chosen, but it was less than five weeks. I wrote about the outcome in two stages, here and here. The chairs of committees are of course the most prominent members and have enormous influence over their work, especially in terms of setting their agenda and establishing a tone. But every general needs his or her poor bloody infantry, and with the chairs in place the parties still need to nominate the other (usually 10) members of each committee.

While chairs of most (but not all) select committees are elected by the whole House, the other members are nominated officially by the Committee of Selection, which then presents the nominations to the House for formal approval. This committee was appointed on 30 July and is chaired by Newport East Labour MP Jessica Morden, but it is essentially a forum for the government and opposition whips to agree various items of uncontentious business, and the subsequent approval of the House is taken as read. The political parties are left to choose their select committee nominees internally, and then submit the names of the lucky candidates to the Committee of Selection.

The Labour Party is currently in the process of its internal elections for committee membership. There is always enormous variation in the popularity of committees, with some like Treasury, Foreign Affairs and Education naturally being highly sought after, while others are… less so (three Labour vacancies remain for the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee). There has been lively interest within Labour, hardly surprising as it has 410 MPs (plus Judith Cummins, Bradford South, still officially a Labour Member but serving as a deputy speaker), and those who have not gained ministerial office or other official or semi-official roles may want additional duties. Most spaces have now been filled, according to a useful post on the Labour List website, and I don’t propose to go through it exhaustively, but I wanted to point to just a few MPs who might have influence or prominence in their new roles.

Dan Carden (Foreign Affairs): a well kent face in Westminster thanks to working for former Easington MP John Cummings, Carden returned to his native Liverpool in 2017 to beat Mayor Joe Anderson for the nomination for the Walton division of the city in a controversial contest, and was elected at that year’s snap election with the biggest majority in the country (32,551). He served as shadow international development secretary under Jeremy Corbyn from 2018 to 2020, promoting radical policies to steer the World Bank and the IMF away from free-market economics and called for the cancellation of debts in the Global South during the Covid-19 pandemic. He was then briefly a Treasury spokesman and parliamentary private secretary to Rachel Reeves. Although he quit the left-wing Campaign group earlier this year, he remains the sort of Labour MP happy to wear the label of “socialist” and will no doubt bring the thinking and principles of his previous role to scrutinising the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and was beaten to the chair of the committee by only eight votes by Emily Thornberry. Only now approaching 38, Carden is bright and articulate and may be a highly effective select committee member.

Mike Tapp (Justice): the newly elected MP for Dover and Deal has an impressive CV including three operational tours of Iraq and Afghanistan in the Army’s Intelligence Corps, three years at the National Crime Agency and five in the Ministry of Defence. A background in intelligence and law enforcement will sharpen some areas of inquiry for the committee of which he sought to be chair (though he was convincingly defeated by veteran Andy Slaughter), although much of his expertise falls more directly within the remits of other committees. Nevertheless he will be able to speak with the authority of front-line service, which is always valuable.

Fred Thomas (Defence): having beaten veterans minister Johnny Mercer to be elected MP for Plymouth Moor View at the general election, Thomas brings a six-and-a-half year career as a Royal Marines officer to the Defence Committee. There was an unedifying row before and during the election campaign about the precise nature of Thomas’s service, but in general the presence of armed forces veterans in the House of Commons is a good thing (and has increased considerably since I started working there in 2005). He has an impeccably establishment background, educated at Winchester and grandson of the 5th Viscount Esher and of Professor Charles Thomas: his experience of institutional life will no doubt aid his scrutiny of the armed forces as well as helping him settle in at Westminster.

Derek Twigg (Defence): a veteran of the 1997 Labour landslide, when he was elected for Widnes and Halewood, Twigg stood for election as chair of the Defence Committee last month but seeks to continue as a member. He was on the committee twice before, from 2013 to 2015 and again from 2020 to 2024, and was minister for veterans at the Ministry of Defence 2006-08, so knows the subject area intimately. At 65, he is a calm, measured presence, his polite, pleasant approach well suited to a committee and a remit that is often more consensual and non-partisan than many committees, partly because of the gravity and national security aspects of many of its inquiries. One of vanishingly few former ministers on the government backbenches, his fellow members—and the chair, Tan Dhesi—would do well to lean on his experience as they seek to hold the MoD to account.

Paul Waugh (Culture, Media and Sport): the new MP for Rochdale narrowly unseated George Galloway, having failed to be selected for the seat ahead of the February 2024 by-election despite being brought up in the constituency. His choice of subject matter is interesting, as he is a well-known and experienced journalist. He studied journalism at the University of Cardiff after studying philosophy and physiology at Oxford and editing The Oxford Student. After working as a local reporter in north London, he joined The Evening Standard, then became The Independent’s lobby correspondent in 1999. Waugh was the first member of the lobby to have a Twitter account and has amassed 225,000 followers. After a second stint at The Standard, he joined The Huffington Post in 2015 as political editor and also presented BBC Radio 4’s The Week in Westminster. Subsequently he was editor of Politics Home and has written for The i. As an experienced practitioner he will be able to contribute with authority to the media part of the committee’s remit, and it will be interesting to hear his views on regulation and social media.

Yuan Yang (Treasury): the first Chinese-born Briton to be elected to Parliament, Yang graduated with a first-class degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Balliol College, Oxford, then read for a master’s degree at the London School of Economics including a period of study at Peking University. She was a co-founder of the economics education group Rethinking Economics, and after interning at The Economist she joined The Financial Times as a China correspondent. She was deputy bureau chief in Beijing and has contributed to BBC News regularly, so has a solid grounding in economic issues on a global scale. Yang was elected MP for Earley and Woodley in Berkshire at the recent general election, her family having lived there for nearly 15 years. An impressive combination of subject expertise and imaginative thought.

That is a handy half-dozen across the spectrum of policy areas. No doubt I will come back to this when the opposition names are known and committees reach full strength.