Committees

Nominations open for the Home Affairs Committee Chair

4 September 2024

MPs have begun the process of electing a Chair of the Home Affairs Committee in the new Parliament.

The Speaker announced the timetable for the elections on July 30. The period of nominations will run until 4pm on Monday 9 September, with the ballot scheduled for Wednesday 11 September.

The new Chair will be elected from the Conservative party under the allocation of committee chairs to political parties which was agreed by the House on 30 July 2024.  

Since 2010, most committee chairs have been elected by the whole House, by a system of alternative vote and by secret ballot. To be valid, nominations must contain a signed statement made by the candidate declaring their willingness to stand.

It must be accompanied by the signatures of 15 MPs elected to the Commons as members of the same political party as the candidate (or 10 per cent of the MPs elected to the House as members of that party, whichever is the lower). More than 15 signatures can be collected but only the first 15 valid signatures are printed. Members may only nominate one candidate per select committee.

Nominations may be accompanied by the signatures of up to five MPs elected to the House as members of any party other than to which the chair is allocated or of no party. Similarly, only five such signatures are printed.

Candidates must declare any relevant interests with their nomination. Valid nominations received each day are published with the next day's Order Paper and will be listed below.

Nominations

Candidate: Dame Karen Bradley

Supporters (own party): Nigel Huddleston, Mims Davies, Sir Ashley Fox, Kevin Hollinrake, Alicia Kearns, Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst, James Wild, Nick Timothy, John Glen, Dame Caroline Dinenage, Mark Garnier, Dame Harriett Baldwin

Supporters (other parties or no party): Paul Waugh, Liam Byrne, Melanie Onn, Colum Eastwood, Gareth Snell

Relevant interests declared: Trustee – Human Trafficking Foundation; Trustee – Arise

Supporting statement:

I am standing for the Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, so that I can bring experience and expertise to the role.

Scrutinising the Home Office

I have been an MP for 14 years and in that time I’ve been a backbencher, a select committee chair, a whip, a cabinet minister for Northern Ireland and Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and, for over two years, a minister in the Home Office.  As the Minister for Modern Slavery and Organised Crime and then the Minister for Preventing Abuse, Exploitation and Crime, I was proud to take both the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the Serious Crime Act 2015 through their parliamentary stages.

I know from all these roles how important it is that Parliament properly scrutinises the Government – it makes for better Government for the country and our constituents and it genuinely helps ministers to push back against officials.  Select Committees have a unique role in the process of scrutiny, bringing together MPs from all political parties and backgrounds looking in depth at issues.

A select committee chair who delivers

I was honoured to have the role of Chair of the Procedure Committee throughout the last parliament.  During that time, the committee worked on many issues, proxy voting for new parents and those with serious illnesses, correcting the record and the Restoration and Renewal project.  But our biggest challenge was when the pandemic struck and we had to adapt parliament to work in the age of social distancing, facemasks and shielding.  I am proud that our parliament was able to operate throughout the whole pandemic and that the committee worked cross party to achieve that.

Representing Parliament here and abroad

Making democracy work is why we are all here.  I have been able through the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK, the British and Irish Parliamentary Assembly and a number of global networks, to push for stronger laws around the world.  Home Affairs affects us here in the UK, but many of the issues are ones shared around the world and require international cooperation.  As Co-Chair of the APPG for Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery and my involvement with other APPGs, I have championed these causes both inside and outside parliament.

Candidate: David Mundell

Supporters (own party): Mr Andrew Mitchell, Graham Stuart, Andrew Bowie, Alberto Costa, Wendy Morton, John Cooper, John Lamont, Harriet Cross, Robbie Moore, Lincoln Jopp, Dr Caroline Johnson,  Matt Vickers

Supporters (other parties or no party): Florence Eshalomi, Torcuil Crichton, Christine Jardine,  Layla Moran, Michael Payne

Relevant interests declared: None

Supporting statement:

EXPERIENCED. INCLUSIVE. EFFECTIVE.

I am asking for your number 1 vote to be Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee.

My agenda is simply to ensure effective Parliamentary scrutiny of Government and that all voices are heard.

I have nearly 20 years’ experience in Parliament.  Having been an Opposition backbencher to Cabinet Minister and now Opposition backbencher again. In this time I directed questions to Government, answered on the Government’s behalf but have also overseen Parliamentary procedures such as chairing Bill Committees and Westminster Hall Debates as a member of the Speaker’s Panel of Chairs.

As the first openly gay Conservative Cabinet Minister, I have a track record of inclusion. And having served as the only Conservative MP in Scotland for my first 12 years in the Commons, I am acutely aware that it is not always straightforward to get your voice heard and of the need to work with others to ensure that you do. As chair I will be open to taking forward not just the issues of the day, but concerns of Members both on the Committee and across Parliament.

Whether in Government or, as I have been for the last 5 years, on the backbenches I know effective outcomes are achieved by focus and persistence and that would be my ethos in chairing the Committee. In the last Parliament this achieved specific protections for the cash system in the Financial Services & Market Act,  the rolling out of opt-out testing in Accident & Emergency Departments across the country and £1.5 billion in Nutrition sensitive spending within the development budget. I believe this record would allow me to maintain the effectiveness that the Home Affairs Committee has so often demonstrated in past Parliaments.

Committees are cross-party in character. Whether as a Minister during the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition, the Better Together campaign in Scotland or, more recently, Co-Chairing the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on HIV and AIDS and Nutrition for Development with Labour colleagues, I have a track record of working across political boundaries to deliver outcomes for our constituents and further afield.

If elected as Home Affairs chair I would continue such an approach and ensure all voices were heard.

Further information  

Image credit: House of Commons