Next week's committees
This September fortnight may be a short Commons session but the select committees are cramming in a lot of important action, with interesting witnesses and a whole phalanx of Cabinet ministers strutting their stuff...
But let's start with the Public Bill Committee on the Superannunation Bill - of great interest to civil servants since it will reduce the level of payments made to them for voluntary and compulsory redundancies. The committee will take evidence in two sessions Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon and then start to consider the bill line by line on Thursday. This is the provisional programme:
Tuesday: In the morning the committee will hear witnesses from the Cabinet Office and the Hay Group, and then from Keith Bradford (member of the CBI Employment Committee) and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
In the afternoon, it will be the turn of the Council of Civil Service Unions, Prospect and the First Division Association, followed by Fiona Draper, an independent consultant and the Public and Commercial Services Union.
Now to the select committees - and on Monday, the will have the chance to probe the Coalition's "localims" agenda with DCLG Secretary Eric Pickles along with the Housing Minister Grant Shapps and Greg Clark, minister for decentralisation.
On Tuesday, the will hear from the Foreign Secretary William Hague and Sir Peter Ricketts, the National Security Adviser, for their inquiry into Who Does UK Grand Strategy?
The session is likely to examine, among other things, current capacity in Whitehall to undertake high level strategic thinking and the framework which may be necessary to sustain it.
The will hear evidence on the National Audit Office's . The witnesses will be officials from the NHS and the Department of Health in north-west England.
The will be looking at the law on drink and drug-driving - witnesses will include the AA, the Association of British Drivers (ABD), the RAC Foundation, and the Association of Chief Police Officers. But the star may be Sir Peter North, who has proposed cutting the blood alcohol limit to 50mg/100ml and who says the UK needs "a step-by-step assault" on drug-driving.
With continuing rows over the culpability of the banks in the economic crisis, the will kick off its new inquiry into financial regulation with the former City Minister Lord Myners and Professor Charles Goodhart. They're expected to ask about the government's proposals for moving regulation to the Bank of England. Will this centralise too much power in the bank?
They'll also vet Dr Martin Weale, who's been appointed to the Monetary Policy Committee - the people who set the UK's interest rates.
The take more evidence on the government's proposals for immigration caps. Witnesses include the Immigration Law Practitioners' Association, Highly Skilled Migrant Programme Forum and Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch.
The will take evidence on the Department for Culture, Media and Sport Accounts 2009-10 from Jeremy Hunt the new Secretary of State, and Jonathan Stephens, Permanent Secretary. This will be a catch-all session in which the committee can run the gamut of DCMS issues.
And the continues its scrutiny of the voting reform bill, with evidence from the Electoral Commission, including chair Jenny Watson, on the implications of the government's proposals for the work of the commission.
On Wednesday, a key, but probably very tekky session of the - with the Secretary of State for Iain Duncan Smith. The committee will be keen to ask about the new DWP strategy paper, 21st Century Welfare, which includes proposals to move people off benefits and into work by increasing work incentives, and about the Chancellor George Osborne's announcement that he plans to extract an extra £4bnn from the welfare budget. With huge cuts to welfare spending a central part of the Coalition's governing strategy, Mr Duncan Smith may offer the first real glimpse of how he plans to make the savings - or not.
The Public Accounts Committee examines the findings of the recent with Robert Devereux, from the Department for Transport and Bill Emery, chief executive, Office of Rail Regulation.
At the , Energy Secretary Chris Huhne comes in to talk about the impact of spending cuts, the energy costs faced by consumers, climate change, carbon-capture and storage, and deepwater drilling in UK waters - and that last subject is picked up later when the committee hears from the outgoing BP chief executive Tony Hayward and the company's head of safety, Mark Bly (author of the BP report about the disaster published this week), on what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico and the implications for the Coalition's plans to allow deepwater drilling off the coast of Scotland.
In a similar vein the Education Committee's inquiry into child safeguarding will hear from the former Haringey Council director of children's' services, Sharon Shoesmith, followed by Education Minister Tim Loughton.
Environment Secretary Caroline Spellman will explain the implications of a 25% spending squeeze on nature conservation and environmental protection to the .
On Thursday, Nick Clegg's junior minister Mark Harper gives evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee on the two bills currently working their way through the House, on voting reform and fixed term parliaments.
And the continues its inquiry into strategic thinking in Whitehall with evidence from Sir Robert Fry and other retired Navy and Air Force personnel.
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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