Next week's committees
A very thin collection of meetings on the Commons Committee Corridor, next week.
On Monday, the new super committee on the National Security Strategy makes its debut, with former Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett in the chair. The committee is intended to promote a joined-up approach to national security issues - and its members include the chairs of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Affairs, Defence, Foreign Affairs and several other select committees, as well as a host of senior MPs and peers - including such luminaries as Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Baroness Manningham Buller, the former head of MI5.
They will have some pretty high powered witnesses to chew on - Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Secretary Alan Johnson, Security Minister Lord West and Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth. It is at least 18 months since the creation of this committee was first mooted, and its inaugural meeting is in the final month of this parliament. So will their first meeting also be their last? It is not at all clear that whoever's in charge after the next election will think it is worth keeping the committee going.
The takes evidence on affordable housing in the capital, from groups including London housing associations, Shelter and the National Housing Federation.
And the be taking evidence on the NHS's major trauma care in England, in the wake of , which found "unacceptable variations" in the standards of care available.
On Tuesday, the will hold a follow-up evidence session on mortgage arrears with witnesses from Shelter, Which? and the Citizens Advice Bureaux, and then from the Council of Mortgage Lenders, the Finance and Leasing Association, the Building Societies Association, and Financial Services Authority.
The holds a triple headed session starting with a follow-up to the committee's report on A Surveillance Society, with Sir Christopher Graham, the information commissioner. Then they turn to the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs with its interim chair Professor Les Iversen. And then they discuss the work of the Security Industry Authority with Bill Butler, its chief executive.
Wednesday sees another Public Accounts Committee session - this time on the management of offenders on short prison sentences - , which said more could be done to rehabilitate those who would only be in prison for a matter of weeks. The committee will quiz officials from the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and the Ministry of Justice.
To make up for the rather thin crop of meetings, there's a bumper harvest of reports, this week and next. Among others, the Joint Committee on Human Rights' final look at counter-terrorism policy, the Transport Committee reporting on the new European Motorcycle Test, the Foreign Affairs Committee gauging the state of the Foreign Office, the Business Committee reporting on the motorsport and aerospace industries - a key part of high-end manufacturing and R&D in Britain, the Science and Technology Committee looking at the impact of science spending cuts on British bioengineering, the Northern Ireland Committee on a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. And the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has agreed a report on the collapse of the milk-producing cooperative, the Dairy Farmers of Britain.
All that and, doubtless, much, much more, as the committees clear their decks before the election.
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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