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Every select committee wants its say

Parliamentary scrutiny in the run up to the general election.

Emily Pfefer

A relatively thin Queen’s speech last June had many speculating that a lacklustre “zombie parliament” lay in store for the 2014-2015 session. We thought it would be interesting to examine the data on select committee activity in the run up to the last general election to see whether the “zombie parliament” label is justified in relation to scrutiny.

With MPs returning to Westminster this week it is important to recognise that passing legislation is only one of their roles. As Britain’s fourth longest-serving Prime Minister William Gladstone is said to have reminded the House of Commons, “Honourable members are summoned to this place not to legislate or govern, but to be the constant critics of those who govern.” Parliament’s role is to scrutinise as well as to legislate. We’ve analysed the Commons select committee data from the House of Commons Sessional Returns published since the 2005-2006 session (when the current publication format was introduced). Commons select committees ramped up publications as the 2010 general election approached A cursory examination of the data might lead you to conclude the “zombie parliament” label could also have been used before the 2010 election. A key indicator of select committee activity is their reports—write-ups at the conclusion of an inquiry that detail conclusions and recommendations. When you look at the raw number of reports published per session, there was a clear drop-off in the number of select committee reports published during the 2009-2010 session as the general election loomed.

However, the graph above is skewed by the fact that parliamentary sessions differ greatly in length. The length of the sessions above ranged in length from the shortest, 69 sitting days during the 2009-10 parliamentary session, to the longest, 295 sitting days during the 2010-12 parliamentary session. Although select committees may meet on non-sitting days, sitting days provide a better basis for comparison because the length of the session affects how much work a committee can do. When report publication is standardised across sessions by number of sitting days, an opposite result emerges.
When standardised by sitting day, the data shows that publication actually ramped up as the general election drew closer. While the 2005-06 session was relatively quiet, there was a clear productivity spike during the 2009-10 session just before the general election, capping off a gentle upward trend in report publications per sitting day throughout the 2005-10 Parliament. It appears that Commons select committees were actually highly active during the final session of the 2005-10 Parliament. This may be because committees were eager to maximise their influence before the likely shakeup of committee membership that the election could (and did) bring. It will be interesting to watch for indications of this trend repeating itself with fewer than eight months to go to the 2015 general election. Will the “zombie parliament” label be justified in relation to scrutiny? Of course, increased publication does not automatically make for better parliamentary scrutiny. As the general election draws closer, it will be important to keep an eye on both the quantity and quality of parliamentary scrutiny, a charge which the IfG is leading with our project on scrutiny of public policy by Commons select committees. As a further complement to this work, we will follow up this post by examining select committee activity within the broader work of the House of Commons.

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