Boris Johnson is facing a “jobs for the boys” row over his plan to install a senior Tory ally as the chair of a powerful committee that scrutinises the government.
The prime minister is coming under pressure to delay or ditch plans to appoint veteran backbencher Sir Bernard Jenkin to head up the liaison committee, once the House of Commons returns from its extended Easter recess next week.
The ‘super-committee’, which is the only committee with the power to summon the prime minister before it, is made up of chairs of 37 different select committees and since 2010 has chosen its own chair from among its members.
But there is growing anger among Labour and even some Conservative MPs that Downing Street will use a whipped vote next Wednesday to effectively pick who is in charge of the body tasked with grilling the PM directly three times a year.
Unlike other committee chairmen, Sir Bernard would not be elected in a secret ballot but would instead be simply installed by a government motion, backed by a three-line whip.
The move would also cost the taxpayer an extra £16,422 a year as Sir Bernard would have to be specially added to the committee and given a chairman’s salary, on top of the usual MP’s wage of £81,932.
Government whips tried to get the appointment passed on the nod just before parliament rose for Easter, but several Labour MPs shouted ‘object’ to trigger a formal vote at a later date.
Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg has scheduled the vote to take place next Wednesday, when few MPs are likely to be present in person due to the requirements for social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.
Sir Bernard lost out on his bid to become chairman of the Commons defence select committee earlier this year and as a result would not normally be eligible to sit on the liaison committee.
Labour MP Kevin Brennan, a member of the DCMS select committee, said the planned appointment looked like a “consolation prize” for Jenkin.
“Doing ‘whatever it takes’ to protect jobs during the coronavirus outbreak should not include creating jobs for the boys, when millions are facing losing their own jobs,” he said.
“The government choosing its own chief scrutineer is like a pupil getting their homework marked by their chosen classmate.”
The liaison committee has the power to grill the prime minister three times a year on any subject, but despite entering No.10 last July Johnson has not yet appeared before it.
The prorogation of parliament led him to cancel a scheduled appearance last year and the committee has not been formed since the election.
A Labour select committee chair told HuffPost UK: “We’ve got nothing against Bernard personally. But the government trying to appoint somebody through the whips process totally goes against parliamentary accountability.
“We expected it to be a Tory. If it had been Greg Clark, Tom Tugendhat, Tobias Ellwood, Mel Stride [chairs respectively of the science, foreign affairs, defence and Treasury committees] at least they would all have been there as chairmen of their own committees. It would have been perfectly consensual.
“The real outrage is that the government have delayed setting up the liaison committee just so they can get who they want as its chair. And with coronavirus, this is a time when parliamentary scrutiny is more important than ever.”
One Tory select committee chair said: “The whole reason we become select committee chairmen is because we are not ‘yes’ men or women. It looks like the government trying to take control of the liaison committee and run it the way they want to run it.”
Another chair was more cautious, pointing out that with a majority of 80 the government was in a powerful position. They said: “The most important thing is that the liaison committee is established and up and running.”
In the meantime, some committee chairmen are trying to find alternative ways to work together to scrutinise the government.
Jeremy Hunt’s health committee included as ‘guest’ members on Friday other committee chairmen including Tugendhat, Yvette Cooper and Clive Betts.
Previous liaison committee chairs, Sir Andrew Tyrie and Sarah Wollaston, were both Tory MPs but seen as strongly independent of government.
Leading Brexiteer Jenkin backed Johnson for the Tory leadership last summer, but his friends point out that he proved a robust scrutineer of the government when he was chairman of the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee.
Sir Bernard has in recent days been pushing for ministers to subject themselves to public evidence sessions, conducted via video calls from select committees chairmen.
Brigid Fowler, of the Hansard Society, the independent body that analyses parliament, said: “I do think that if the government moves its motion as it stands, and it goes through, that would be a retrograde step.
“The point of the Wright reforms a decade ago was to allow select committees to emerge as a more independent source of scrutiny, less under the control of the government and the whips. This is obviously a step backwards.
“It reminds me of the row over prorogation. It’s process overreach, going a step too far and all of a sudden it becomes a much bigger issue than it would otherwise.”
Hannah White, of the Institute for Government think tank, added: “The response to coronavirus is a cross-government effort shaped by political decisions about difficult trade offs for which the prime minister has taken a high degree of personal responsibility.
“The glaring absence of the cross-cutting scrutiny which the liaison committee would normally conduct through evidence sessions with the prime minister is deeply unfortunate right now, given the potential benefits of explaining and testing government policy.
“Doing away with the longstanding convention that the liaison committee has the right to choose its own chair makes it seem as if the government is nervous of facing robust scrutiny at a time when testing government policy is more important than ever.”
In a hint that there could be movement from the government, it is understood that a new Commons business statement on Tuesday could set out further details.
A Commons spokesperson confirmed to HuffPost UK that if Jenkin were to be appointed he would be entitled to the £16,000 top-up to his MP’s salary.
Such an extra payment was “payable where the liaison committee chair is not already paid a salary for chairing a select committee”, they said.
Sir Bernard has been approached for comment.