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Chair (Terminology)

We have brought forward the proposals that were made by the Wright Committee. If the hon. Gentleman agrees with them, he can support them, and if he does not, he can vote against them. There is an evolving process and no doubt other Committees that are not departmental or similar will have to be considered as we go along. Motion 5 runs alongside motion 4 and provides a mechanism for Chairs to resign or to be removed by a no-confidence vote in the Select Committee so that a ballot for a new Chair can take place. Without that provision there would be no effective trigger for replacing a Chair once that Chair had been elected. Motion 6 endorses the Wright Committee's proposal for the election of Select Committee members, with each party being responsible for electing its own members by secret ballot. My right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) and several of his colleagues on the Liaison Committee have tabled amendment (a) to the motion, which would allow the Speaker and the Committee of Selection to propose to the House that a Select Committee member whose attendance was less than 60 per cent over the course of a Session should be discharged. I agree with the Reform Committee's recommendation that there should be "clear consequences" for non-attendance by Select Committee members, but I think we should reflect further before we embark on the Liaison Committee's approach. The competing claims on Members' time will sometimes mean that individuals' attendance drops below 60 per cent. for perfectly good reasons. In fact, six of the hon. Members who signed the motion attended less than 60 per cent. of Liaison Committee meetings in the last Session and the Liaison Committee's overall attendance was only 50.6 per cent., so I am sure they will accept the point about the demands on hon. Members' time. We can think further about the matter so I ask them not to press for a vote. The principle was right but we need to think about how we take it forward.