This week marks a year since the House of Commons established a new Modernisation Committee. In this post, Tom Fleming reviews the committee’s first year. 

On 25 July 2024, the House of Commons voted to establish a new Modernisation Committee, with a remit to ‘consider reforms to House of Commons procedures, standards, and working practices; and to make recommendations thereon’. This implemented one of Labour’s manifesto commitments and echoed the party’s previous appointment of a Modernisation Committee after the 1997 election. Like its earlier namesake, the committee has an unusual composition: it includes frontbench MPs as well as backbenchers, and is chaired by a government minister (the Leader of the House, Lucy Powell). 

What has the committee done so far? 

The new Modernisation Committee did not begin work straight away, as its members were not appointed until early September. However, it then held its first meeting within two days, and endorsed the publication of a memorandum from the Leader of the House setting out the committee’s core goals and working principles. This set out strategic aims of ‘driving up standards’, ‘improving culture and working practices’, and ‘reforming procedures’. 

Since then, the Modernisation Committee has carried out two main pieces of work. 

First, the committee launched a ‘call for views’ in October 2024, seeking suggestions for what to prioritise within its broad strategic aims. This ran until December 2024, and received a very large number of responses through formal written evidence and engagement activities within parliament. Based on this, the committee published a further memorandum in February 2025 laying out its planned next steps. This promised three initial ‘packages of work’ – ‘[i]mproving accessibility for MPs, staff and the public’, ‘[e]ffective use of the Commons’, and ‘[c]reating more certainty about the timing and nature of parliamentary business’. The memo also referred briefly to a ‘future workstream’ looking into ‘effective legislative scrutiny’. 

Subsequently, the committee has begun the first of these strands of work, launching an inquiry on ‘Access to the House of Commons and its Procedures’. As part of that inquiry, the committee held seven oral evidence sessions with a wide variety of witnesses, and received written evidence. The inquiry was still ongoing at the start of the summer recess, with no report or recommendations published so far. 

The committee has thus used its first year to consult widely within and beyond the House, and to establish its initial priorities. But it has not so far delivered any changes to how the House works. 

What have we learned? 

Given this, what have we learned about how the committee has approached its work so far, and about what to expect in the future? Three areas are particularly worth exploring, given earlier expectations about the committee. 

Slow progress? 

Perhaps the most striking fact about the committee’s first year is that it has not yet led to any changes to the Commons’ procedures, standards, or working practices. Indeed, it has not even produced any recommendations for such changes. Moreover, despite announcing three ‘priority’ areas of work in February, it has so far only opened a formal inquiry into one of them. 

This might raise concerns for supporters of reform, given that a key argument in favour of the committee’s unusual chairing arrangement is that ministerial involvement might help to more effectively deliver change. Moreover, there may also be a risk that delay means missing the window of opportunity for reform in the initial aftermath of a general election. 

This slow start contrasts starkly with the committee’s 1997 namesake. That earlier Modernisation Committee was appointed on 4 June 1997, produced its first report – on the legislative process – by the end of July, and had published seven reports in total by the end of June 1998. 

That being said, it might be unfairly premature to criticise the committee’s limited rate of progress. After all, while the committee was established in July, its members were only appointed in September. More importantly, using its initial months for wide consultation on its priorities may give it a better chance of building broad consensus around its recommendations, and developing a reputation for pursuing genuine cross-party deliberation. 

Relationship with government 

Gaining such a reputation is an important challenge for the committee, given that its predecessor was painted by critics as a government-chaired vehicle for pursuing procedural changes that originated from and benefitted ministers. 

So far, there have been no obvious signs of the Leader of the House trying to railroad a government-inspired agenda through the committee. (The question of whether the government actually has a clear agenda for Commons reform was discussed at a session of this year’s Constitution Unit conference). Lucy Powell has clearly been shaping the committee’s direction, as was shown most obviously by her initial October memo. But as noted above, the committee subsequently consulted broadly on its priorities and has not yet produced any firm proposals, government-inspired or otherwise.  

Indeed, there are several areas of procedural reform where the government has expressed a view but has not sought the Modernisation Committee’s endorsement of that view. This can be seen from written evidence submitted to the Procedure Committee’s inquiries on call lists and electronic voting. In both cases, the government submitted written evidence outlining its position, and the Modernisation Committee submitted separate evidence that did not take a position and instead summarised the relevant responses to its earlier call for views. 

Relationships with other committees 

These evidence submissions highlight a final noteworthy aspect of the committee’s work: its relationship with the House’s existing select committees. When the committee was initially established, a key focus of discussion was how far it would duplicate or supersede the work of these committees, rather than establishing a constructive division of labour. 

Thus far, there has been more evidence of the latter dynamic, with the Modernisation Committee feeding views into other committees’ work rather than duplicating that work. The committee’s sole current inquiry does not seem to overlap with ongoing work by any other select committee. As well as the written evidence discussed above, Lucy Powell gave oral evidence – in her capacity as Modernisation Committee chair – to the Standards Committee’s inquiry into MPs’ outside employment and interests. And there have also been other signs of collaboration, such as private meetings with other committees’ chairs, and allowing such chairs to take part in the committee’s work – including oral evidence sessions – through the ‘guesting’ procedure. 

Nonetheless, there remains a question about how the Modernisation Committee will respond as and when these other committees produce conclusions and recommendations. The Leader’s description of the committee as a ‘task and finish group’ seems to hint at a role in filtering and refining other committees’ proposals, rather than them being simply put before MPs for debate and decision. This could prove to be a future flashpoint, if it gives the impression that the committee – or, through it, the government – are an obstacle to the House considering other committees’ ideas. Indeed, the Procedure Committee’s chair, Cat Smith, has warned against any such efforts. The chair of the Standards Committee, Alberto Costa, has also been careful to emphasise his committee’s independence while still expressing its willingness to cooperate with the Modernisation Committee. 

Summary 

The Modernisation Committee has not used its first year to deliver rapid reforms to the House of Commons’ procedures, standards or working practices. But nor has it driven through a government-inspired reform agenda at the cost of alienating opposition parties. Sceptics might therefore conclude that the committee has been a non-event, delivering neither the potential benefits nor the possible downsides highlighted by earlier commentary. On the other hand, the committee still has an opportunity to deliver serious reform, and its relatively slow start might help it to build broader support for its eventual recommendations. How the committee approaches its second year will thus be crucial for the course of Commons reform in this parliament. 

About the author

Tom Fleming is a Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics at UCL. He is currently leading the Unit’s ESRC-funded project ‘The Politics of Parliamentary Procedure’. 

Featured image: Lucy Powell MP: (c) House of Commons.