What is a select committee, and what power does it actually have?
A select committee is a cross-party group of backbench MPs or peers appointed to scrutinise a department, a subject or an issue — and its power is almost entirely about exposure rather than compulsion.
The types:
Departmental select committees shadow a government department, examining its spending, administration and policy. There is one for each major department.
Cross-cutting committees cover subjects spanning departments — the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which examines whether public money was spent effectively, and the Public Administration committee among them.
House of Lords committees, which tend toward longer thematic inquiries and are frequently regarded as producing the most substantial reports.
Joint committees of both Houses.
What they do. Launch inquiries, issue calls for written evidence, take oral evidence from ministers, officials, experts and outside organisations, and publish reports with recommendations. The government must respond, conventionally within two months.
What makes them more independent than people expect. Since 2010, chairs are elected by secret ballot of the whole House and members elected within their parties, rather than being appointed by the whips. This changed the culture considerably — a chair who owes their position to colleagues rather than to the party leadership behaves differently. The PAC is chaired by a member of the opposition by convention.
Their actual powers:
To send for persons, papers and records — formally substantial, though enforcement is uncertain in modern practice, and the sanctions available to Parliament for refusal are historic and largely untested.
Parliamentary privilege protects what is said in evidence.
No power to compel the government to do anything. Recommendations are not binding.
Where their influence actually lies: publicity and reputational pressure; forcing officials and executives to answer questions publicly, on camera; establishing an authoritative account of what happened; shaping legislation through pre-legislative scrutiny; and a research-backed body of evidence that others can cite. Committees have prompted resignations, policy reversals and further inquiries.
Not to be confused with a public bill committee, which scrutinises a specific bill line by line and is a different thing entirely.
General information about the UK Parliament.