Failing Grayling has lost his bid to become Chair of the prestigious Intelligence and Security Committee after a successful Labour-backed coup by MP Julian Lewis. Only Grayling could lose a rigged election…
A statement just released by the Cabinet office confirms Dr Julian Lewis’s election as Chair:
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) today elected Rt Hon Dr Julian Lewis MP as its Chairman.
You’ve got to give it to Grayling, at least he’s consistent…
Labour’s new wannabe-Pidcock, Zarah Sultana, made a very public showing yesterday of her career cluelessness, after declaring she refused to vote for any Tories in yesterday’s select committee chair elections.
Committee chairmanships are divided up by party. In not voting for any Conservative MPs, Sultana excluded herself from electing the chairs of key committees including Health, Foreign Affairs, or Women and Equalities. Unlike her NUS days, Zarah should probably wake up to the fact that she was elected to represent her constituents’ interests – not just virtue signal…
Taking even one moment to think about it Zarah would have realised that committee chairmanships are divided by party for a reason. If they were a free for all, the Tories (with their stonking majority) would win every single one. Her ignorance even drove current and former Labour politicians to point out her stupidity…
This kind of clueless Corbynite abstaining may have made a difference in tight votes like DCMS Chair; where BBC bashing Julian Knight thankfully pipped Cadwalladr fan Damian Collins to the post by just seven votes. Grape job, Sultana.
Read the results in full below:
Defence – Tobias Ellwood
DCMS – Julian Knight
Environmental Audit – Philip Dunn
Foreign Affairs – Tom Tugendhat
Health – Jeremy Hunt
International Development – Sarah Champion
International Trade – Angus MacNeil
Justice – Bob Neill
Northern Ireland – Simon Hoare
Petitions – Cat Mckinnell
Procedure – Karen Bradley
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee – William Wragg
Science and Tech – Greg Clark
Transport – Huw Merriman
Work and Pensions – Stephen Timms
You can also read the outcomes of the 13 unopposed committee chair appointments, announced on Monday, here.
The deputy speaker has just congratulated 13 new committee chairs who were successfully reappointed unopposed. The full list are:
- Backbench Business Committee – Ian Mearns
- Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Committee – Rachel Reeves
- Education – Robert Halfon
- Environment, Food & Rural Affairs – Neil Parish
- Brexit – Hilary Benn
- Home Affairs – Yvette Cooper
- Housing, Communities & Local Government – Clive Betts
- Public Accounts – Meg Hillier
- Scottish Affairs – Pete Wishart
- Standards – Kate Green
- Treasury – Mel Stride
- Wales – Stephen Crabb
- Womens & Equalities – Caroline Noakes
The rest of the elections will take place on Wednesday afternoon, with results announced later that day…
Poring over the Order Paper as he always does, Guido spotted a fascinating Standing Order vote coming up later today and being pushed by the government – to abolish Committee Chairs’ term limits. Very Putinesque. Paving the way for grandees like Bernard Jenkin and Clive Betts to stay on past their impending term limit…
There are many luxuries to having a large majority, but few anticipated rule changes like these coming up. Guido understands the Tory old guard have been banging on about seeing such a change for a while, feeling some select committee chairs have been shortchanged by the term limits because of the successively short parliamentary sessions since 2015. Will we see further parliamentary reforms from the government like this over the next five years?
A new Parliamentary term means new Select Committee Chair elections, and the races are already hotting up. Two of the more interesting battles are shaping up to be the Health and Social Care Committee, vacated by Sarah Wollaston, and the Transport Committee, which switches from Labour to Tory due to the size of the Government’s stonking majority. The formerly Lib Dem Science and Technology Committee is turning Blue too…
On the Health Committee, Guido hears that Jeremy Hunt is angling for the top job, but is facing a strong challenge from Dr Dan Poulter who has been sounding out colleagues about standing for the role.
Guido understands that former Transport Minister Robert Goodwill will be standing for the newly Tory role of Transport Committee Chairman, against Tory wet Huw Merriman.
Crispin Blunt is also staging a re-match against Tom Tugendhat who beat Blunt to take the role in 2017.
With every Government bill almost guaranteed to pass, Committee Chair races are set to become the biggest source of scrutiny…
