Member News
By Ned Simons - 10th August 2010
We've got to be clear that the committee is a forum for backbenchers, we exist in order to represent backbenchers. It's not us telling backbenchers what to do.
Natascha Engel, chair of the backbench business committee
Natascha Engel's election to chair the backbench business committee came as something of a surprise to the self confessed "Parliament geek", who expected veteran Tory MP and former deputy speaker Sir Alan Haselhurst to ease into the job.
"I put my name forward pretty much straight away after the nominations were opened," Engel says. But admits she was "very surprised" to have won.
Based on the recommendations of the reform of the House of Commons committee chaired by former Labour MP Tony Wright, the new backbench business committee has been handed the power to choose the topics for debate in the Commons chamber and in Westminster Hall in non-government time.
The Labour MP for North East Derbyshire's shock at her victory may stem from the fact that she has spoken on the floor of the Commons about some of the potential dangers of the very committee she now chairs.
And a member of the Wright committee herself, she submitted a minority report, arguing against the creation of a House business committee which will bring together the backbench committee and ministers to determine all Commons business.
Along with fellow committee member Peter Atkinson, Engel warned that it risked simply shifting the balance of power from one democratically and directly elected elite, the government, to a less directly accountable and less expert elite, backbenchers.
In a debate on the subject in June, Engel warned against "transferring power from the Whips Office, where deals are done behind closed doors and we learn what has been done when it is announced here by front benchers, to another back room where seven members and the chair of the backbench committee make the decision".
I was always very in favour of a backbench business committee," she explains now. "I was a bit more anxious about a house business committee which is something we are going to move towards in three years."
"I was on the Wright committee and was very worried that what we were doing with the backbench business committee was transferring power from the Whips Office to the senior backbench elite.
But having defeated an old hand in Sir Alan Haselhurst, who could be said to embody the elite she was so wary of, what is to stop her simply joining that club herself? And how will she ensure the committee is accountable?
"We want to meet in public like a normal select committee, which will help us guard against that," she says.
"If what we are doing is taking our steer from other backbenchers then it's down to the other backbenchers to hold us to account and to make sure we don’t become inaccessible and effectively an elite.”
Previously the idea had been that the committee meet in secret and "have conversations" with the leader of the house, the business managers and the whips when scheduling business.
"I think that way we would have ended up just becoming part of the problem," she warns. "By meeting in public we avoid doing that".
"We've got to be clear that the committee is a forum for backbenchers, we exist in order to represent backbenchers. It's not us telling backbenchers what to do.
Clearly energised by her new position, Engel appears to be relishing the chance to shape a new parliamentary body at its birth.
"I hope that in the future the role of the committee can be really to help backbenchers be better backbenchers and also to promote what is really good about being backbencher," she says.
"Certainly when I first got elected there were a lot of colleagues who saw being a backbencher as what you did before you got onto the front benches.
"There's really a lot of scope in being a backbencher, there a lot of freedom in being a good backbencher, you can be really good at representing your constituents, you can be really good at representing your political party, there is a lot that you can do."
The first debate ever scheduled by the committee was held last month and was well attended, although Engel acknowledges this may have been largely down to the novelty of the occasion.
The topic, the backbench bugbear of ministers leaking policies to the press before announcing them on the floor of the chamber, also probably drove up the number of attendees.
"One of the things that has happened over decades is that ministers leak to the press before they come to Parliament," Engel says.
"It takes not just the excitement out of it; it makes it harder for us to hold the government to account."
But she admits the public are probably "not that bothered" about the media getting their hands on statements before MPs do, and is mindful of the need for backbenchers to avoid looking too self obsessed.
"It was very parliamentary; it was about backbenchers themselves and the role of backbenchers.
"What I would really like us to do is be much more public focused, so one of the main criteria for choosing a debate has to be about whether its topical and whether it something people 'out there' are bothered about.
"The way to do that is to meet in public. Hopefully we will get into a routine where members of the public will go and lobby their MPs to take issues to the backbench business committee.
"Our next debate is on a substantive motion on Afghanistan. That is absolutely policy, that’s not about parliamentary procedures.
"The one after that is about the Strategic Defence Review. That’s a debate we've chosen as a result of the defence select committee writing to us.
In recognition of her previous concerns about the committee's potential lack of accountability to MPs, she hopes to open up the process of scheduling debates by creating a weekly timeslot for MPs to come and make representations to the committee on what topics should be considered for debate.
She explains: "So even if they're not successful in securing their debate they will be successful in reading something into Hansard, they will at least make the point that they have made representations to our committee. So it won't be entirely wasted.”
As for the rest of the committee, its membership is made up entirely of MPs from the 2005 intake, with one exception, Conservative MP Jane Ellison who was elected this year.
"It would have been good to have people who were longer serving than we've got, but I'm still pleased with what we have," she insists.
And reflecting on her initial concerns at the creation of the committee she adds: "I think some of the things I was concerned about actually haven’t happened, so I am glad about that."
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd