Tag Archives: standards committee

The House of Commons Modernisation Committee: background, opportunities, and potential pitfalls

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The House of Commons has voted to establish a new Modernisation Committee. Tom Fleming and Hannah Kelly explore the opportunities and challenges facing this new committee, drawing on their recent Constitution Unit report on past approaches to delivering House of Commons reform.

Last week MPs voted to establish a new select committee, the Modernisation Committee, ‘to consider reforms to House of Commons procedures, standards, and working practices’. This proposal was brought forward by the Leader of the House, Lucy Powell, and was promised in the Labour manifesto.

The name implies similarity with the previous Modernisation Committee, which was appointed under the last Labour government between 1997 and 2010, and which we analysed in our recent Constitution Unit report, Delivering House of Commons Reform: What Works?. This blogpost therefore draws on that research to evaluate the opportunities and potential pitfalls facing the new committee.

A new Modernisation Committee

The committee will have 14 members – nine Labour MPs, three Conservatives, and two Liberal Democrats – to be nominated via a future motion from the Leader of the House. It will include the Leader of the House herself (who expects to chair the committee) and the Conservatives’ Shadow Leader, Chris Philp. Though Powell wasn’t explicit in last week’s debate about how other members of the committee would be selected, Philp indicated that they would be chosen by their parties’ whips.

The committee’s composition will therefore be unusual in two ways. First, House of Commons select committees usually only include backbench MPs. Second, since 2010 the members of most select committees have been chosen by their fellow MPs via intra-party elections, not by party whips.

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In praise of post-election transition periods 

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The UK is about to embark on its first July general election since 1945. After an initial burst of activity, this timing will give both government and parliament some breathing space before ‘politics as usual’ resumes in the autumn. Various experts have previously indicated the benefits of a more formal post-election transition period. Meg Russell summarises these, suggesting that the unusual circumstances in 2024 might encourage reflection on longer-term changes to the system. 

Rishi Sunak’s election timing surprised many. Tomorrow’s vote represents the first UK general election held in July since 1945. Prior to the last election, held in December 2019, all of the previous 10 contests had taken place in April, May or June.  

An earlier post on this blog in praise of fixed-term parliaments discussed the downsides of the uncertainty over this year’s timing. This follow-up post instead considers some of the potential upsides of the timetable, in terms of likely events in the weeks and months ahead. After polling day, parliament is due to reconvene on 9 July, with a King’s speech setting out the government’s intended legislative programme following on 17 July. The start date for parliament’s summer recess seems likely to be delayed slightly from the previously planned 23 July. But there will be little appetite – among MPs, their staff, civil servants or journalists – for parliamentary activity in August. This makes an enforced break of several weeks very likely, allowing election participants to recover, but also to plan ahead. 

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