Reviewing the Modernisation Committee’s first year 

This week marks a 12 months because the Home of Commons established a brand new Modernisation Committee. On this publish, Tom Fleming opinions the committee’s first 12 months. 

On 25 July 2024, the Home of Commons voted to ascertain a brand new Modernisation Committee, with a remit to ‘contemplate reforms to Home of Commons procedures, requirements, and dealing practices; and to make suggestions thereon’. This applied certainly one of Labour’s manifesto commitments and echoed the occasion’s earlier appointment of a Modernisation Committee after the 1997 election. Like its earlier namesake, the committee has an uncommon composition: it consists of frontbench MPs in addition to backbenchers, and is chaired by a authorities minister (the Chief of the Home, Lucy Powell). 

What has the committee achieved up to now? 

The brand new Modernisation Committee didn’t start work right away, as its members weren’t appointed till early September. Nonetheless, it then held its first assembly inside two days, and endorsed the publication of a memorandum from the Chief of the Home setting out the committee’s core targets and dealing ideas. This set out strategic goals of ‘driving up requirements’, ‘bettering tradition and dealing practices’, and ‘reforming procedures’. 

Since then, the Modernisation Committee has carried out two essential items of labor. 

First, the committee launched a ‘name for views’ in October 2024, searching for strategies for what to prioritise inside its broad strategic goals. This ran till December 2024, and obtained a really giant variety of responses by way of formal written proof and engagement actions inside parliament. Primarily based on this, the committee printed an extra memorandum in February 2025 laying out its deliberate subsequent steps. This promised three preliminary ‘packages of labor’ – ‘[i]mproving accessibility for MPs, workers and the general public’, ‘[e]ffective use of the Commons’, and ‘[c]reating extra certainty in regards to the timing and nature of parliamentary enterprise’. The memo additionally referred briefly to a ‘future workstream’ trying into ‘efficient legislative scrutiny’. 

Subsequently, the committee has begun the primary of those strands of labor, launching an inquiry on ‘Entry to the Home of Commons and its Procedures’. As a part of that inquiry, the committee held seven oral proof classes with all kinds of witnesses, and obtained written proof. The inquiry was nonetheless ongoing at first of the summer season recess, with no report or suggestions printed up to now. 

The committee has thus used its first 12 months to seek the advice of broadly inside and past the Home, and to ascertain its preliminary priorities. Nevertheless it has not up to now delivered any adjustments to how the Home works. 

What have we realized? 

Given this, what have we realized about how the committee has approached its work up to now, and about what to anticipate sooner or later? Three areas are significantly value exploring, given earlier expectations in regards to the committee. 

Gradual progress? 

Maybe essentially the most hanging truth in regards to the committee’s first 12 months is that it has not but led to any adjustments to the Commons’ procedures, requirements, or working practices. Certainly, it has not even produced any suggestions for such adjustments. Furthermore, regardless of saying three ‘precedence’ areas of labor in February, it has up to now solely opened a proper inquiry into certainly one of them. 

This may elevate issues for supporters of reform, given {that a} key argument in favour of the committee’s uncommon chairing association is that ministerial involvement may assist to extra successfully ship change. Furthermore, there may be a danger that delay means lacking the window of alternative for reform within the preliminary aftermath of a normal election. 

This sluggish begin contrasts starkly with the committee’s 1997 namesake. That earlier Modernisation Committee was appointed on 4 June 1997, produced its first report – on the legislative course of – by the tip of July, and had printed seven stories in complete by the tip of June 1998. 

That being mentioned, it could be unfairly untimely to criticise the committee’s restricted charge of progress. In any case, whereas the committee was established in July, its members have been solely appointed in September. Extra importantly, utilizing its preliminary months for large session on its priorities might give it a greater probability of constructing broad consensus round its suggestions, and creating a popularity for pursuing real cross-party deliberation. 

Relationship with authorities 

Gaining such a popularity is a crucial problem for the committee, provided that its predecessor was painted by critics as a government-chaired automobile for pursuing procedural adjustments that originated from and benefitted ministers. 

To date, there have been no apparent indicators of the Chief of the Home making an attempt to railroad a government-inspired agenda by way of the committee. (The query of whether or not the federal government truly has a transparent agenda for Commons reform was mentioned at a session of this 12 months’s Structure Unit convention). Lucy Powell has clearly been shaping the committee’s course, as was proven most clearly by her preliminary October memo. However as famous above, the committee subsequently consulted broadly on its priorities and has not but produced any agency proposals, government-inspired or in any other case.  

Certainly, there are a number of areas of procedural reform the place the federal government has expressed a view however has not sought the Modernisation Committee’s endorsement of that view. This may be seen from written proof submitted to the Process Committee’s inquiries on name lists and digital voting. In each circumstances, the federal government submitted written proof outlining its place, and the Modernisation Committee submitted separate proof that didn’t take a place and as a substitute summarised the related responses to its earlier name for views. 

Relationships with different committees 

These proof submissions spotlight a ultimate noteworthy facet of the committee’s work: its relationship with the Home’s current choose committees. When the committee was initially established, a key focus of debate was how far it might duplicate or supersede the work of those committees, fairly than establishing a constructive division of labour. 

To this point, there was extra proof of the latter dynamic, with the Modernisation Committee feeding views into different committees’ work fairly than duplicating that work. The committee’s sole present inquiry doesn’t appear to overlap with ongoing work by every other choose committee. In addition to the written proof mentioned above, Lucy Powell gave oral proof – in her capability as Modernisation Committee chair – to the Requirements Committee’s inquiry into MPs’ outdoors employment and pursuits. And there have additionally been different indicators of collaboration, comparable to personal conferences with different committees’ chairs, and permitting such chairs to participate within the committee’s work – together with oral proof classes – by way of the ‘guesting’ process. 

Nonetheless, there stays a query about how the Modernisation Committee will reply as and when these different committees produce conclusions and proposals. The Chief’s description of the committee as a ‘job and end group’ appears to trace at a job in filtering and refining different committees’ proposals, fairly than them being merely put earlier than MPs for debate and determination. This might show to be a future flashpoint, if it gives the look that the committee – or, by way of it, the federal government – are an impediment to the Home contemplating different committees’ concepts. Certainly, the Process Committee’s chair, Cat Smith, has warned in opposition to any such efforts. The chair of the Requirements Committee, Alberto Costa, has additionally been cautious to stress his committee’s independence whereas nonetheless expressing its willingness to cooperate with the Modernisation Committee. 

Abstract 

The Modernisation Committee has not used its first 12 months to ship speedy reforms to the Home of Commons’ procedures, requirements or working practices. However nor has it pushed by way of a government-inspired reform agenda at the price of alienating opposition events. Sceptics may subsequently conclude that the committee has been a non-event, delivering neither the potential advantages nor the doable downsides highlighted by earlier commentary. Then again, the committee nonetheless has a chance to ship severe reform, and its comparatively sluggish begin may assist it to construct broader help for its eventual suggestions. How the committee approaches its second 12 months will thus be essential for the course of Commons reform on this parliament. 

In regards to the creator

Tom Fleming is a Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics at UCL. He’s presently main the Unit’s ESRC-funded mission ‘The Politics of Parliamentary Process’. 

Featured picture: Lucy Powell MP: (c) Home of Commons.