Next week's committees
The Commons select committees swing back into action next week, with several promising-looking evidence sessions in prospect.
On Monday, the special investigating the police raid on the Commons office of the Conservative immigration spokesman Damian Green hears from...the police.
A galaxy of senior officers including the head of SO15 Counter-Terrorism Command, Commander Shaun Sawyer, former Assistant Commissioner of the Met Bob Quick and the inevitable Assistant Commissioner John "Yates of the Yard" Yates, who must, by now, be sick of the sight of Commons committee rooms.
Expect much of the attention to focus on the former Speaker Michael Martin's claim that the police "bamboozled" the of the Commons, Jill Pay, into allowing a search of Mr Green's office. It is a claim the Met have firmly rejected.
Wednesday sees the intervening where angels fear to tread with a hearing entitled Evidence Check: Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔopathy. The British Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔopathic Association squares up against a whole phalanx of scientists and pharmaceutical types, plus Ben Goldacre, the author of the Guardian's Bad Science column. It could get brutal.
Also this week, two pre-appointment hearings. The is talking to Poul Christensen, the government's preferred candidate for the chair of Natural England; and the is talking to Lord Lang of Monckton, who is expected to take the chair of the Advisory Committee on business appointments.
In both cases, the committee may raise a quizzical eyebrow. Not because of any doubt about either individual, but because there are questions - and complaints - that the selection process was not sufficiently open. Both committees may endorse the candidates before them. But if they don't it will stoke a growing grumble in select committee-land.
Back in October the questioned whether Maggie Atkinson would be sufficiently independent as Children's Commissioner, only for the Secretary of State, Ed Balls, to appoint her anyway. It raised the question: why bother with pre-appointment hearings, if the government simply rejects unwelcome verdicts?
And the question will surface again, if the same thing happens over either of these posts. Of course select committees don't have US Congress style "advise and consent" powers to vet and, if they choose, reject government appointees, so Mr Balls was quite within his rights to ignore his departmental select committee. But a new front may be about to open in the struggle to empower the Commons.
Imagine if MPs did have the right to block the appointment of powerful quangocrats, industry regulators and the like.
I'm Mark D'Arcy and I'll be writing about what goes on in the chambers and committee rooms at Westminster.
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