Changes to Parliament: Installing the Chair of the Liaison Committee
By Matthew Greenwood
Keeping Up with Parliament: What Happened to the Liaison Committee?
With all the hustle and bustle surrounding Dominic Cummings in the last few days, it’s little surprise that not too much attention has been focussed on the comings and goings of the Liaison Committee.
A recent sizeable change is the instalment of Sir Bernard Jenkin, the MP for Harwich and North East Essex, as chairman of the Liaison Committee, a placement that sets an important precedent for the role. Before I dive into the details and the precedent his instalment sets, I will first give a description of what the Liaison Committee is and what it is supposed to do.
Since its informal creation in 1967 the Liaison Committee has evolved into an important select committee that is responsible for facilitating and supporting the work of all the House of Commons Select Committees. Its membership comprises of the all the MPs who chair select committees.
Since 2002, it has also held regular evidence sessions with the Prime Minister and these sessions are chaired by the chair of the Committee, a figure usually elected by all the members of the Liaison Committee. These is no hard and number of times that the Prime Minister is expected to appear before the Liaison Committee each year, but minimum of three times is expected.
As aforementioned, the chair of the Committee is usually elected by all its members, but this time is different. Bernard Jenkin, who failed to win the chair of the Defence Committee and is therefore not a member of Liaison, is being installed as its chair via a vote of the House of Commons. Naturally, despite the undertaking being subject to a free vote of the House, Sir Bernard is known to have the support of the Prime Minister, and some MPs worry that if Boris Johnson installs his own inquisitor, he will get off lightly in the scrutiny sessions.
There are, then, three key objections to the installation of Sir Bernard Jenkin:
1 – Sir Bernard is not a member of the Liaison Committee and precedent dictates that the chair must already be a member before appointment.
2 – The role of voting for a leader of the Liaison Committee is being taken away from its members and being given the whole House. While this is the case for all other select committees, it has not traditionally been the case for the Liaison Committee.
3 – If the chair is reliant on the government’s support, some MPs believe that the Prime Minister will be subject to less scrutiny.
Liaison Committee Membership:
It is true that Sir Bernard is not a member of the Liaison Committee and his appointment does set a precedent for MPs who are not members to chair the committee. It is currently too early to tell if this precedent will have a lasting effect on the way the House of Commons functions.
The Whole House Votes:
It is also too early to tell if this precedent will remain. It is true that the election of all the chairs of the Departmental Select Committees are subjectto a vote of the whole house and Jacob Rees Mogg argued somewhat along these lines. He claimed that by allowing the whole House to vote the election was more democratic.
Will Sir Bernard Scrutinize the Prime Minister?
There is less doubt about this. While Sir Bernard may be installed with the support of the Prime Minister, he has never been fearful of enacting scrutiny. Shortly after being elected in 1992, Sir Bernard became a Maastricht Rebel during the premiership of John Major and after a brief stint in the shadow cabinet has resided on Committee Corridor ever since. His first performance on the 27th May 2020 is also reassuring that he will take the role seriously.