Unity and divisions on departmental select committees: A Brexit effect?

Philip Lynch,Richard Whitaker

doi:10.1177/1369148120961743

Abstract

Most reports from UK departmental select committees are agreed by consensus, underpinning their reputation for non-partisan working in an adversarial House of Commons. However, divisions (formal votes) are more common than is often assumed, occurring on 9% of reports between 2010 and 2019. This article provides the first comprehensive analysis of unity and divisions on select committees. It finds that the incidence of divisions increases when opposition parties chair committees, when there are more rebellious members of parliament present and when more new members of parliament are in attendance. Brexit provoked significant inter-party and intra-party divisions in the Commons. In committees, divisions on Brexit reports are higher than those on other reports and the Exiting the European Union Committee has a clear Leave-Remain fault line. But, more broadly, the Brexit effect on select committees is limited and unanimity remains the norm even when there are policy differences between parties.

Highlights

In an adversarial House of Commons, departmental select committees have established a reputation for cross-party working with most of their reports agreed unanimously
We find an effect for Brexit in a bivariate context in 2017–2019, within the Exiting the European Union (EU) Committee, but no clear effect for EU issues earlier than this or in the 2010–2019 period as a whole, taking into account other factors explaining cohesion
We have shown that the rate and number of divisions on departmental select committees is higher than is often assumed given the emphasis on achieving unanimity

Summary

Introduction

In an adversarial House of Commons, departmental select committees have established a reputation for cross-party working with most of their reports agreed unanimously. We find that the incidence of divisions on select committee reports increases when opposition parties chair committees, when there are more rebellious MPs present (defined on the basis of behaviour in the chamber) and when more new MPs are in attendance. Broad agreement on policy among committee members is likely to produce unanimously agreed reports whereas intra-party divisions make consensus less likely (Arter, 2003).

Results

Conclusion