Election of select committee chairs and members in the House of Commons

What are select committees?

Select committees are cross-party groups of MPs or Lords (or both) charged by Parliament with a specific role or with investigating a specific issue. They are one of Parliament’s main tools for holding government to account.

Who chairs select committees?

Select committees are chaired by backbench MPs (i.e. not government or shadow ministers). Select committee chairs are chosen at the beginning of each Parliament.

Since 2010, most chairs have been elected through secret ballots of MPs. 

The chairs of a small number of internal committees, like the Administration Committee or the Committee of Selection, continue to be elected by members of the committee themselves and not the whole House. Members of the Liaison Committee also used to elect their own chair, but in the last parliament, Bernard Jenkin was appointed as chair through a government motion in the House itself. ¹⁴ Hansard, Liaison (Membership), 20 May 2020, HC Deb 676, 667–680, hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2020-05-20/debates/4EBF5182-D1C6-4ED6-A507-1BEFA8E0F692/Liaison(Membership)  It remains to be seen whether this approach will be taken in the current parliament. 

In 2019, the Liaison Committee recommended that the parliamentary rules be changed so that all select committee chairs are elected by the whole House, but this recommendation has not been taken up. ^undefined House of Commons Liaison Committee, The effectiveness and influence of the select committee system, Fourth Report of Session 2017–19, HC1860, 9 September 2019, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmliaisn/1860/1860.pdf

How are the chairs of select committees divided among parties?

The broad principle is that the balance of committee chairs should reflect the party balance in the House of Commons, although there is some flexibility to accommodate political realities. Once the number of seats won by each party in a general election is known, the Speaker’s office applies a formula – the details of which are not public – to work out how many committee chairs should be allocated to each party. Following the 2024 general election, Labour were assigned 18 committee chairs, the Conservatives were granted five and the Liberal Democrats were given three. In addition, Labour have announced a new Modernisation Committee to be chaired by a Labour cabinet minister.

On the day after election, the Speaker of the House of Commons informs each party represented in the House of the proportion of chairs allocated to each party. The usual channels (party whips) then negotiate which select committee chair should be allocated to which party.

Under Commons’ standing orders, the Public Accounts Committee and the Committee on Standards must be chaired by a member of the main opposition party, while the Backbench Business Committee chair must be elected from a non-government party (but not necessarily the official opposition). Treasury, Defence and Foreign Affairs are often taken by the governing party, but there is no rule that they must.

Parties will try to get the committees responsible for the policy areas in which their political priorities lie; for instance, following the 2024 general election, the Liberal Democrats secured the chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, having campaigned extensively on water pollution during the election period.  

How does the election of chairs work?

Once MPs know which chairs their party has been allocated, they can start to think about which committee they might want to chair and to campaign among their colleagues. To stand, MPs must secure the signatures of 15 MPs elected to the Commons as members of the same party, or 10% of MPs elected to the Commons as members of the same party (whichever number is the lowest).

The election of chairs usually takes place 14 days after the party allocations are announced. After the 2019 general election, MPs voted to delay this process until the final week of January in order to allow for the Christmas recess and changes to government departments planned for the end of January. ²⁰ Hansard, Allocation Of Select Committee Chairs (Timing), 20 December 2019, HC Deb 669, 145, hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2019-12-20/debates/31BEF7FB-ED5C-480C-A877-631AA4D5B71D/Speaker%E2%80%99SStatement  Elections in the current parliament have been delayed until 11 September on account of the summer recess, with nominations closing on 9 September.

A secret ballot using the alternative vote system is used to elect committee chairs, and all MPs (irrespective of party) have a vote on every chair. Despite the introduction of elections for committee chairs in 2010, it is common for many candidates to stand unopposed, somewhat undermining the principle of election and suggesting the choice of committee chair is left to internal party politics.

In 2020, the chairs of 13 committees were appointed unopposed, down from 17 in 2017, but slightly higher than the 11 chairs who took up their posts uncontested in 2015.

Members of the committees must then be appointed following internal party elections. After the 2019 general election, this meant that it was well into February 2020 before many Commons select committees were up and running – potentially to the detriment of parliamentary scrutiny.

Are there limits to how many times an MP chair a select committee?

Standing orders (the rules that govern the House of Commons) include a term limit on committee chairs of two full parliaments (the period between general elections) or eight continuous years, whichever is the greater. ²¹ House of Commons, Standing Orders: Public Business 2023, HC 1932, No. 122A, publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmstords/so-1932-23102023/so-2023i.pdf  In the last parliament, this would have excluded some high-profile chairs from standing again, like Sir Bill Cash, the chair of the European Scrutiny Committee. In order to avoid this, the government passed a motion to suspend these limits for the remainder of the 2019 parliament. ²² Hansard, Business without debate, 16 January 2020, HC Deb 669, 1265–66, hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2020-01-16/debates/C13F2110-0F95-4814-B07D-1F097D77FA59/BusinessWithoutDebate

There are no select committee chairs from the 2019–24 parliament who would be affected by term limits in this parliament: all of those who were over their term limits either stood down as MPs, lost their seats or are ineligible for re-election on account of the new party allocations, and so there is no need to disapply the term limits in this parliament.

Who else cannot chair a select committee? 

By convention, government and opposition frontbenchers do not serve on select committees and therefore ministers and shadow ministers do not run for election as select committee chairs. The exception is the new Modernisation Committee, which is chaired by the leader of the House of Commons (a cabinet minister), but in this case, the chair was appointed by a government motion and not by election.

Committee chairs who become frontbenchers during the course of a parliament resign their position. For instance, Yvette Cooper was appointed shadow home secretary in Keir Starmer’s 2021 reshuffle and so resigned her post as chair of the Home Affairs select committee. Likewise, Robert Halfon resigned as chair of the Education Committee in 2022 upon his appointment as skills minister.

Who else sits on select committees?

As well as chairs, select committees have a membership made up of backbench MPs. Committees vary in size from seven members (the Committee on Privileges) to seventeen members (the Procedure Committee), but departmental select committees are usually made up of 11 MPs.

The membership of each committee largely reflects the balance of parties in the House itself and so the governing party usually has a majority of members on each committee. While the larger opposition parties will usually also be represented on every committee, minor parties are granted far fewer seats. When initial select committee memberships were drawn up in 2020, the 11 Liberal Democrats MPs were given just two select committee seats (on Scottish Affairs and on Public Accounts). However, the Green Party’s sole MP, Caroline Lucas, was also given a place on the Environmental Audit Committee, highlighting the flexibility of the committee allocations. The exact balance of committee places through negotiation between the party whips at the beginning of each parliament.

How are select committee members elected?

Once the party balance of each committee is determined, membership elections are held within each party. These have been held since 2010, after the Commons endorsed the principle that each party “should elect members of select committees in a secret ballot by whichever transparent and democratic method they choose”. ²³ Hansard, Election of members of select committees, 4 March 2010, HC Deb 506, 1095, hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2010-03-04/debates/10030456000003/Chair(Terminology)  The process used by each party will determine the time it takes; in recent parliaments the process has been completed within around a month of the election of committee chairs.

Once each party has decided who will represent it on each committee, a motion setting out the membership of each committee must be agreed on the floor of the House. In the last parliament, this motion was not approved until 2 March, almost four months after the general election and five weeks after the election of committee chairs. This process may take even longer in the 2024 parliament given the timing of the summer recess and the large number of first-time MPs.

In an effort to limit the time without select committee scrutiny, at the end of the 2017–19 parliament, the Liaison Committee (comprised of the chairs of Commons select committees) restated the 2009 Wright Committee recommendations that select committees should be nominated no more than six weeks after the Queen’s Speech. ²⁴ House of Commons Reform Select Committee, Rebuilding the House, 24 November 2009, publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmrefhoc/1117/111702.htm  It also said that the Liaison Committee should be able to sit with an interim chair once a majority of committee members had been elected.

How influential are select committee chairs?

Committee chairs exert considerable influence over the focus and working practices of the committee. The move to elected committee chairs in 2010 gave committee chairs greater legitimacy and has arguably made chairing a committee a possible alternative to taking up a ministerial position.

Previous Institute for Government research has found that the chair of a select committee determines its impact more than any other factor. However, committee chairs can be outvoted by other committee members, and so must work constructively with others.