Role - Business and Trade Committee

In July 2016, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Energy and Climate Change merged, to become the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The Committee was renamed on 17 October 2016. The remit of the Committee reflected the responsibilities of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and included such issues as business regulation and corporate governance, energy and climate change, and science and innovation.
Following changes to Standing Orders in May 2021, the BEIS Committee assumed responsibility for scrutinising draft Legislative Reform Orders – a function previously fulfilled by the (former)
Regulatory Reform Committee.

In April 2023, following changes to the machinery of government, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee was renamed as the Business and Trade Committee, to scrutinise the work of the department with the same name.

The responsibility of scrutinising of the Government’s energy policy was passed on to the new Energy Security and Net Zero Committee in April 2023.