Next week's committees
A rather thin collection of meetings next week, as the select committees wind down their inquiries in the final weeks of this Parliament. I mentioned last week that a lot of the meetings they are holding are private sessions, devoted to writing reports. "Bluesberry" asked if the meetings were private, or simply unattended. Well, they are attended, but in some cases not very attended. The committees need a quorum in order to approve reports. But, whichever is greater. And sometimes there are just four out of 14 members present when reports are being approved.
That can make the committees reluctant to take strong positions in reports - and where members do turn up it is often to ensure that something is not said, that might inconvenience their party at the election....
Monday sees the examining the government's efforts to help and advise over-indebted consumers. According to a total consumer debt in the UK (mortgages, credit cards and store cards) stands at nearly £1.5 trillion - and people who are struggling to meet their repayments are waiting over a month to see an advisor, or even being turned away. The committee will cross examine officials from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
The will polish off its inquiry into housing and planning by hearing from the Housing Minister John Healey and Sir Bob Kerslake, chief executive of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖs and Communities Agency.
Questioning is expected to cover the government's house building targets, skills gaps and labour shortages in local authorities, reducing carbon emissions from the existing housing stock, standards and regulation in the private rented housing sector, reform of the Housing Revenue Account subsidy system and the design quality in publicly-funded new housing.
On Tuesday, following the takeover of iconic chocolate maker Cadbury by the US company Kraft, the will take evidence from Jack Dromey, deputy general secretary of Unite, and Jennie Formby, national officer, food and drink sector, before hearing from Marc Firestone, executive vice-president, Kraft Foods, Trevor Bond, president of Cadbury Britain and Ireland, and Richard Doyle, the HR director.
The will hear from the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, Kit Malthouse, on the work of the Met.
Wednesday sees the taking evidence on the impact of flooding on bridges and other infrastructure in Cumbria. The aim is to discover whether events in Cumbria illustrate a wider problem with infrastructure across the UK in the face of extreme weather events... so how robust is the UK's general road system?
There's a rather unusual session of the - a seminar on Defra's approach to science, which will be entirely on the record.
To start with, the committee is sitting down with a panel invited to kick off a discussion. There will then be initial responses from certain other invited members of the audience (key stakeholders willing to be more critical of Defra) then the debate will open out to include anyone present who wants to participate.
Over 40 people are known to be coming from a very diverse set of organisations. A handful of media people have also sent in questions already.
And the will be questioning officials from the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ about its management of three major construction projects on the basis of - which commented that the corporation was not well placed to demonstrate value for money from the £2,000m earmarked for the projects.
The will hold its second evidence session for its inquiry into the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games 2012: Legacy - the witnesses will be Sir Robin Wales, mayor of Newham and chair of the Host Boroughs Joint Committee, Jules Pipe, mayor of Hackney, Roger Taylor, director of the Host Boroughs Unit, and Tessa Jowell, minister for the Cabinet Office, and for the Olympics with Shahid Malik, junior minister at the Department for Communities and Local Government
Over at the , ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Office Minister Meg Hillier will give evidence on the Stockholm programme - this sets out the EU's "police and customs cooperation, rescue services, criminal and civil law cooperation, asylum, migration and visa policy" for the next five years.
The programme proposes the implementation of security measures such as ID cards, internet and satellite surveillance systems, and borders outfitted with biometric readers. Critics claim it encroaches on civil liberties.
On Thursday the will hold its first session on "Propriety and Peerages" - by which they mean the circumstances around the ennoblement of Lord Ashcroft, the Conservative vice chairman (see posts below).
At the moment I'm told that the witnesses are to be confirmed. I wonder who they'll call? Committees normally have the power to compel witnesses to attend, and can even send the Serjeant at Arms to fetch unwilling attendees.
But that doesn't apply to MPs or peers. So they can't insist on hearing from Lord Ashcroft himself, or from the former Conservative leader William Hague. And in any event it will be interesting to see how the (very disgruntled) Conservative committee members approach the inquiry. There are murmurs they may boycott the whole thing.
There are some promising-looking reports to keep an eye out for. A joint report from the , and will look at the constant re-invention of the wheel in nation-building efforts in which British armed forces, diplomats and aid workers have been involved. It is expected to complain that the lessons from Bosnia, and even Malaya could have been applied much earlier to Afghanistan.
A separate report will look at the difficulty of finding the right people to run programmes in developing countries - a surprise for those who always thought the department was a magnet for young idealists.
And after some stormy evidence sessions, and even a complaint about breach of parliamentary privilege the report resulting from the Human Rights Committee's investigation into the new, merged Equalities and Human Rights Commission is published next week. How severe will it be on the ECHR Chairman, Trevor Phillips?
Update: The Treasury Committee will be taking evidence on its inquiry The End of Cheques? on Tuesday with two groups of witnesses: first from consumer and advocacy groups, and then the UK Payments Council, the umbrella group which announced that cheques will be phased out by October 2018, but only if alternatives are developed.
The council stated that it had decided to set the date for proposed abolition so far in advance in a bid to encourage the advance of other forms of payment. The session will focus on trends in the use of cheques as a payment mechanism, including estimates of likely use over the next five to 10 years; the advantages and disadvantages of abolition, including the impact of abolition on particular groups in society; and the development of alternatives.
I'm Mark D'Arcy and I'll be writing about what goes on in the chambers and committee rooms at Westminster.
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