High powered security scrutiny
It's been a long time coming, but next week opens for business.
It's a joint committee - MPs and peers - and the membership includes a galaxy of senior figures. There are two former Foreign Secretaries, Margaret Beckett and Sir Malcolm Rifkind; former boss of MI5, Baroness Manningham Buller, plus more ex-ministers and powerful select committee chairmen than you can shake an order paper at.
Their mandate, following the of the UK, is to take a broader view of security issues - taking in threats to the nation from pandemics and global warming, as well as from foreign potentates. Hence the inclusion, for example, of the chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, Labour's Paddy Tipping.
The plan to create the committee led to a certain amount of ennui from senior parliamentarians who are mostly already very busy.
But next week it will finally happen. The committee meets in private on Tuesday to elect its chairman, with Margaret Beckett heavily tipped.
And they intend to have at least one hearing with a minister before Parliament's dissolved for the general election. With the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Affairs Committee making waves this week calling for the PM to appoint an American-style National Security Committee, this new body could find itself taking on a key scrutiny role.
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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