The Politics of Select Committee Assignments in the British House of Commons

• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Author: Jorge M. Fernandes,Thomas Saalfeld,Carsten Schwemmer
• Date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12332

329

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 47, 2, May 2022

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12332

JORGE M. FERNANDES

University of Lisbon

THOMAS SAALFELD

University of Bamberg

CARSTEN SCHWEMMER

GESIS— Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences

The Politics of Select Committee

Assignments in the British House of

Commons

Legislative committees usually combine legislative and oversight functions.

Most research has focused on the former. The British House of Commons of-

fers an opportunity to shed light on MPs’ motivations to engage in the neglected

oversight aspects of committee work, because its committee system separates

lawmaking from investigatory functions. In this article, we examine the politics

of assignment to the investigatory select committees. Using an original data set

for the 2005– 10 and 2010– 15 Parliaments, we find that MPs’ long- standing policy

interests are a strong and consistent predictor for select- committee assignments,

especially when committees’ desirability increases. Our results are largely incom-

patible with partisan models predicting party loyalty to be a decisive factor in

select- committee assignments. Evidence suggests that the “Wright reforms” have

consolidated the self- selection mechanism operating in committee assignments.

Against expectations of partisan motivations driving committee assignments, our

evidence suggests that models based on informational concerns offer the most

convincing rationale.

Introduction

Committees and political parties are crucial elements of leg-

islative organization (Saalfeld and Strøm 2014). Collectively, com-

mittees offer chambers opportunities to increase their productivity

and policy expertise through specialization. Individually, the ques-

tioning of witnesses, deliberation, and decision- making in com-

mittees promises members of parliaments (MPs) various benefits,

including privileged information, policy influence, or personal

© 2021 Washington University in St. Louis

330 Jorge M. Fernandes, Thomas Saalfeld and Carsten Schwemmer

status. Political parties mediate between chambers as collective

bodies and individual MPs. Members are generally chosen to serve

on committees as their parties’ representatives. Consequently, par-

ties are interested in the loyalty and performance of “their” del-

egates in committees, and party leaders may seek to influence the

assignment of those committee seats their parties are entitled to.

In this article, we examine the politics of select- committee

assignment in the British House of Commons. This chamber uses

two types of committees, which results in the separation of law-

making and oversight functions. First, there are ad hoc “public bill

committees,” which are appointed for the duration of the com-

mittee stage of a bill. Second, the Commons uses so- called “se-

lect committees,” focusing on oversight, information acquisition,

and dissemination. Most select committees are appointed for the

duration of a Parliament. A small number of them are involved

in the House’s internal governance. The majority have investiga-

tory functions: they scrutinize executive activity in the implemen-

tation of legislation. Since the 1970s, these scrutiny committees

have become a crucial focus of parliamentary reforms and back-

bench activity. Hence the parliamentary parties on both sides of

the House could be expected to have a keen interest in the loy-

alty of those Members representing them on select committees. A

partisan model of committee assignments along the lines of Cox

and McCubbins (2007) theory developed for the United States

Congress would have a great deal of prima facie plausibility and

predict variations in party loyalty to explain patterns of assign-

ment to both committee chairs and members.

Our case study of the House of Commons is theoretically in-

teresting because it analyzes regularities that emerge in an institu-

tional context where the partisan control of committee assignments

is less clear- cut. There are several reasons to doubt the strength of

partisan control in the context of select committees at Westminster,

which is highly partisan otherwise. While select committees “have

become core features of the British House of Commons” (Norton

2019, 739), many backbenchers do not get involved in select com-

mittee work at all, or do so infrequently (Rush 2001). One reason

is that select committees vary in their value to MPs. Some are con-

sidered “prestigious” (Rush and Giddings 2012) and provide their

members with enhanced authority in the House and visibility in

the general public. Others are less influential, visible, and attrac-

tive for ambitious and reelection- seeking MPs (Dunleavy 2018). In

the latter case, the assignment of select- committee positions may

331Jorge M. Fernandes, Thomas Saalfeld and Carsten Schwemmer

not be a sufficiently scarce resource for the whips to reward loyal

Members. In fact, MPs serving on generally “unattractive” com-

mittees may incur an opportunity cost.

Moreover, the British parliamentary system affords the par-

ties’ whips with more valuable office payoffs to distribute in ex-

change for MPs’ loyalty than select- committee memberships.

Government parties, for example, control access to ministerial po-

sitions. Even leaders of the Official Opposition have significant

powers regarding appointments to the opposition frontbench,

which constitutes part of the pool for future government ministers.

Assuming that committee assignments are not a random

process (Hansen 2011), our argument is as follows: Although the

Commons are a party- centered legislature, party leaders have lim-

ited opportunities to control access to select committees. They even

have incentives to allow some self- selection, which should not be

confused with random assignment. In line with informational the-

ories of legislative organization (Krehbiel 1991), the formation of

ideologically heterogeneous bodies of policy experts may be more

beneficial for the leaderships of both government and opposition

parties than a model where select- committee members strictly rep-

resent the party median. In a highly majoritarian system, where

government usually gets its way in the legislative process, heteroge-

neous committees of policy experts are well- suited to serve as “fire

alarms” to identify problems in the implementation of legislation

(McCubbins and Schwartz 1984). Critical experts are likely to be

as valuable in this process as faithful party soldiers are.

Our findings suggest that backbench MPs tend to get as-

signed to select committees whose remit matches their longer

term policy focus. We present evidence that assignments based on

policy interests even increase with a committee’s desirability (and

the resulting competition for committee membership). Regarding

the importance of partisan loyalty, our results point to an inverse

relationship for the House as a whole: the more rebellious MPs

were in the past, the more likely they will be assigned to select

committees whose jurisdictions they have had a longer term in-

terest in. This effect is statistically significant for Members from

opposition parties, whereas it fails to achieve conventional statisti-

cal significance levels for government backbenchers. This suggests

that promotions to the frontbench might be even more powerful

as a reward mechanism for opposition parties than on the govern-

ment side. Finally, our evidence suggests that the Wright reforms,

intended to reduce the control of the whips over select committee