Foreign Affairs Committee

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That Ian Austin and Mike Gapes be discharged from the Foreign Affairs Committee and Conor McGinn and Catherine West be added.

I am moving this motion on behalf of the Selection Committee. As Chairman of that Committee, it is my responsibility to ensure that it operates in accordance with the rules of the House. That is the case with this motion. I am moving it in the usual way, following its agreement by the Selection Committee last Wednesday. It is up to the House to decide on its merits.

There is no Standing Order requirement that Select Committees, unlike general Committees, be kept exactly in proportion to the House at large. It is through mutual agreement that membership of Select Committees is appointed in rough proportion to the House. That is why the Selection Committee has discretion in proposing changes to Select Committee membership.

Across all Select Committees, neither of the main parties is over-represented. If the Independent Group is treated as a party, it is very over-represented on Select Committees, given the number of members of the group in the House. Although that over-representation does not compel the Selection Committee to take action, reducing that representation is in accordance with the practices of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Austin]

The Labour party, as it is currently led, is making a vindictive attempt to boot me and the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) off the Foreign Affairs Committee.

I want to correct one point that was made earlier: I am not a member of the Independent Group. If the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) has based his calculations on over-representation, I am afraid that is a mistake.

[Bill Wiggin]

As I said very clearly, that would be true if those hon. Members were taken as a group. It is as a group of others that the representation is seen as.

[Ian Austin]

That is as may be, but I am not a member of the Independent Group; I am the independent MP for Dudley, standing up for the people of Dudley, and representing the whole of the House on the Foreign Affairs Committee, which is what members of Select Committees are elected to do.

As the Chair of the Liaison Committee pointed out in an article just this week,

“Select Committees have been strengthened”

since recent reforms

“which allowed their members to be elected by their fellow MPs—and Chairs by the whole House of Commons—rather than appointed by the patronage of party whips. As a result, members are more likely to have relevant experience and genuine interest in the work of their Committees”.

Of no one could that be said more truly than the hon. Member for Ilford South. As far as I am aware, there is no criticism of the way in which he or I have discharged our responsibilities on the Foreign Affairs Committee. He is a distinguished former Chair of the Committee, and before that he was the Labour party’s foreign policy expert. As I have seen in my short time on the Committee, and as Members in all parts of the House would agree, he has a more detailed knowledge of foreign policy issues, and greater contacts around the world, than anybody else in the House of Commons. Booting off the Committee somebody like that, who holds the Government to account, is a ridiculous decision. It flies in the face of how Select Committees are supposed to operate.

As for me, I was one of the people who instigated the Committee’s inquiries on Kurdistan. I was one of the MPs in this House who campaigned for years for the Magnitsky Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I will help the hon. Gentleman. I think Mr Wiggin is responsible for it appearing on the Order Paper.

[Bill Wiggin]

indicated assent.

[Simon Hoare]

Yes, but who triggered the vote on the Committee? That is the question.