Interview: the select few

Welcome to CSW’s select committee round-up
Over the next five pages, 14 departmental select committee chairs set out their appraisals of departmental performance. They also outline their own priorities for the upcoming year.

These MPs are a special bunch – important not only because of their position, but because of the manner in which they attained it. Just after the general election, MPs elected select committee chairs for the first time. Since then, the committees have become increasingly independent-minded, more willing to closely scrutinise and test departments. As one committee chair recently said to CSW, it is a “golden age” of parliamentary scrutiny.
We’ve approached only the select committee chairs responsible for scrutinising specific departments; the cross-departmental select committee chairs will be approached at a later date. Each chair was asked to answer the same four questions, seeking opinions on how cooperative departments have been during inquiries; how well they’ve responded to committees’ recommendations; how effectively departments are achieving their objectives; and what topics the committees will be focusing on this year.
Responses were received from all the chairs except Andrew Tyrie of the Treasury Committee. Some responded in writing; others provided interviews that have been transcribed – and the picture we received is a mixed one. Out of the 14 chairs, 11 said they can always gain access to the officials and the information they need for their enquiries. However, three chairs had, at one point or another, found departments uncooperative.

Meanwhile, 40 per cent of chairs were critical of departments’ responses to their committee reports. The most common irritation wasn’t that departments haven’t accepted their recommendations, but that when departments have rejected a recommendation, they’ve failed to engage fully with and respond fully to the committee’s arguments.

Clearly, this newly empowered group of MPs are emboldened to press their case. And they want civil servants to pay attention to their work; after all, these responses show that select committees chairs are certainly keeping a close eye on what civil servants are up to.

James Arbuthnot
Defence Committee
Conservative MP for North East Hampshire

How easy have you found it to call your chosen departmental witnesses, and how helpful and informative have you found witnesses during hearings?
We generally get the witnesses we want, though in our recent inquiry into the threats posed by electro-magnetic pulse [technologies], we were advised that the Ministry of Defence’s chief scientific adviser was not the appropriate witness. This would appear to have been the result of a misunderstanding, as the minister himself later observed.

On the whole, also, witnesses are co-operative, though in the course of our inquiry into operations in Afghanistan there were occasions when they admitted to having been insufficiently briefed. We do sometimes feel that the department is excessively reluctant to let us see documents, even when these relate to past events and could not put troops at risk.

How positively has the department responded to your reports, and how far has it implemented your proposals?
As with any department it can be difficult to measure how far a committee’s proposals are implemented, as timescales are sometimes long, and a committee may pick up on and encourage something the department planned to do in any case.

How effectively is the department achieving its objectives in terms of policy implementation and organisational reform?
The scale of the reorganisation in the department is massive. The committee has yet to examine the implementation of the recommendations of Lord Levene’s review into the structure and management of the department.
Moreover, it is hard to establish whether the department has achieved its objectives, given that these include the successful prosecution of military campaigns whose outcome may not be known for years. Our last annual inquiry into the department’s report and accounts, however, revealed some administrative and financial shortcomings, as did its predecessor.

What are the priorities for your committee in 2012, and have you yet chosen a set of subjects to examine?
Our main interest is in helping to inform the next Strategic Defence and Security Review, but we have a number of other continuing themes, including the Armed Forces Covenant, developing threats to UK security, and defence procurement.

We have announced inquiries into armed services accommodation, cyber-security and maritime patrol capability, and will continue to scrutinise the administration and accounting performance of the department. Other inquiries will be announced in due course.

Adrian Bailey
Business, Innovation and Skills Committee
Labour and Co-operative MP for West Bromwich West

How easy have you found it to call your chosen departmental witnesses, and how helpful and informative have you found witnesses during hearings?
So far under my chairmanship, we have not needed to call named individuals and have let the department suggest the best-placed officials to give evidence. Overall this has worked well for the committee. Obviously we would like to have more of a political insight into policymaking, but I appreciate that those lines of questioning are better directed to ministers than public servants.

How positively has the department responded to your reports, and how far has it implemented your proposals?
While there has been a positive engagement with the committee during its inquiries, the responses have been a bit of a mixed bag. There is often a lack of clear commitment to action, and greater clarity would be appreciated. On the regulation of pub companies, the government came out against the committee’s view, and did not live up to its undertaking that it would pursue statutory regulation if the committee was unsatisfied with industry proposals. This was a deeply frustrating experience, but my committee is determined to fight the government’s decision to allow self-regulation.

How effectively is the department achieving its objectives in terms of policy implementation and organisational reform?
We have taken evidence from the secretary of state on a number of occasions to see how his department will deliver on its key policy areas with a smaller budget and fewer staff. From what we have seen, the organisational change has not been too traumatic but with the economy in danger of stalling, I am concerned that a less well resourced department may struggle to make the real difference that the private sector needs. The department will need to prove to us and the rest of the country that it is up to this important job.

What are the priorities for your committee in 2012, and have you yet chosen a set of subjects to examine?
Our next major inquiry will be into apprenticeships. At the same time we will be looking at Royal Mail and the Post Office. Following that I expect us to return to the key issue of UK trade and exports. I am sure that we will also want to return to a number of outstanding issues in the government’s reform of higher education. Doubtless we will need to react to unforeseen events and so I am sure that a busy year lies ahead.

Dame Anne Begg
Work and Pensions Committee
Labour MP for Aberdeen South

How easy have you found it to call your chosen departmental witnesses, and how helpful and informative have you found witnesses during hearings?
Government ministers and officials have made themselves available to give evidence to us on every occasion requested; indeed, the secretary of state offered to come and give evidence on the annual report and accounts without being asked!

As is always the case, the usefulness of the sessions has been variable, but in general we have welcomed ministers’ willingness to share information and try to respond to our concerns.

How positively has the department responded to your reports, and how far has it implemented your proposals?
Government responses to our reports have sometimes been disappointing, both in terms of the level of engagement and the speed of response. Of course, the committee understands that delays may occur as a result of recent policy changes or through the government’s desire to respond positively. But the quality of the eventual response does not always
reflect this.

Too often, government responses have merely repeated information known to the committee when our report was drafted. Nor do responses to our specific recommendations always take sufficient account of the argument underpinning them; some seem to look at the recommendation in isolation.

How effectively is the department achieving its objectives in terms of policy implementation and organisational reform?
There are very few policy areas within the Department for Work and Pensions’ remit that are not currently subject to major reform.
Whilst acknowledging the need for policy change in many areas, the committee believes it is important to highlight possible weaknesses and uncertainties in the government’s plans. Reassessment of Incapacity Benefit claimants provides a good example of where we thought this was necessary.

What are the priorities for your committee in 2012, and have you yet chosen a set of subjects to examine?
In 2012 the committee will be publishing reports on Disability Living Allowance and automatic enrolment into workplace pensions, as well as considering the governance of occupational pensions and assessing how the Work Programme is operating in practice.

We will also be looking at progress towards introducing Universal Credit, and at the impact the state of the labour market is having on the department’s reform plans.

It is vital that Parliament through its select committees is able, and is seen to be able, to hold the department to account and to ensure new policies achieve their stated objectives.

Sir Alan Beith
Justice Committee
Liberal Democrat MP for Berwick Upon Tweed

How easy have you found it to call your chosen departmental witnesses, and how helpful and informative have you found witnesses during hearings?
In general, the Ministry of Justice has made efforts to respond to the committee’s requests. It has agreed to all requests for witnesses, and those witnesses have been helpful and informative. It also allowed us to tour its headquarters in small groups, talking to staff in an informal, unchoreographed way.

However, there is one area where more needs to be done: we require earlier warning of statements to be made to the House on important policy matters. It is not acceptable that media outlets know a statement is to be made before members of the committee.

How positively has the department responded to your reports, and how far has it implemented your proposals?
The department has welcomed all our reports and has responded positively to many of our recommendations. When, following a pre-appointment hearing with the preferred candidate to be chief inspector of probation, we raised concerns (including about the selection process) the department decided to re-run that appointment process [and another candidate was chosen]. Other senior officials have also reacted quickly: when we called for guidance from the director of public prosecutions on the use of ‘joint enterprise’ [under which all members of a criminal group are jointly responsible for criminal acts at which they’re present], Keir Starmer announced immediately that he would produce that guidance. The government has also put into practice the recommendations made by the committee in the last Parliament about how relations with the crown dependencies should be conducted.

However, the government has rejected some recommendations – for instance, the recommendation made in our probation service report that both custodial and community sentences should be commissioned at a local level. We shall return to that issue. In many cases there is a general acceptance of our recommendations, but regular follow-up is required to ensure it becomes a reality.

How effectively is the department achieving its objectives in terms of policy implementation and organisational reform?
It is too early to say how successful the department has been in terms of policy implementation and organisational reform, although these are matters on which we will comment in our forthcoming report on The Budget and Structure of the MoJ.

What are the priorities for your committee in 2012, and have you yet chosen a set of subjects to examine?
Other planned work for 2012 includes inquiries into youth justice; Freedom of Information; women and custody; and ongoing scrutiny of draft sentencing guidelines. It promises to be a busy year.

Clive Betts
Communities and Local Government Committee
Labour MP for Sheffield South East

How easy have you found it to call your chosen departmental witnesses, and how helpful and informative have you found witnesses during hearings?
The Department for Communities and Local Government has responded quickly and constructively to requests for witnesses. The ministers in the department operate as a team, and quickly mastered the diverse range of subjects for which the department has responsibility. When appearing before the committee, ministers and officials are well-briefed and usually constructive in answers. One frustration has been the reluctance and inability of newly-appointed officials to be able to respond on matters that occurred before their appointment. This blurs accountability.

How positively has the department responded to your reports, and how far has it implemented your proposals?
Responses to reports have, on the whole, been constructive and comprehensive; even where ministers disagree with the committee, they have been prepared to set out their reasoning in detail. Only in those areas where the government is still developing policies have responses been tentative. The committee’s main contributions have been to draw the department out on the objectives for its new policies, and to assist with fine-tuning of some emerging policies.

How effectively is the department achieving its objectives in terms of policy implementation and organisational reform?
Since the general election the Department for Communities and Local Government has lost over a quarter of its staff and has been substantially reorganised. Notwithstanding this turbulence, the department has produced a large number of policy proposals and implementation of many is now far advanced – for example, on the abolition of the Audit Commission. It is too early to form a view on the quality of policy implementation, organisational reform or the results.

What are the priorities for your committee in 2012, and have you yet chosen a set of subjects to examine?
The committee will continue to examine emerging policies but expects, from 2012, to shift increasingly towards scrutinising the results of the policies that have been developed and put in place by the department. The committee also intends to examine the parts of the department’s responsibilities that it was not able to examine because of the pressure to review emerging policies.

Malcolm Bruce
International Development Committee
Liberal Democrat MP for Gordon

How easy have you found it to call your chosen departmental witnesses, and how helpful and informative have you found witnesses during hearings?
Mostly our relationship has been pretty good, although there have been hiccups. If we have an irritation, it’s that the department sometimes takes a long time to get back to us when an inquiry’s progressing. However, I think their general attitude towards the committee is one of respect and responsiveness.

With ministers, we tend to be fitted in according to their diaries, rather than ours, and sometimes dates get changed. However, there are never refusals to appear.

How positively has the department responded to your reports, and how far has it implemented your proposals?
The department has responded fairly positively to our reports. Obviously we and the department don’t agree on everything, and we haven’t managed to get them to implement all of our recommendations, but on a number of occasions they have acknowledged that our reports have influenced their decision-making. For example, they adapted their India programme in the light of our recommendations.

They genuinely value interaction with the committee, but will sometimes robustly defend themselves. For example, they did so when we criticised the closure of their programme in Burundi: we disagreed with the government’s policy on closing the programme, and were concerned that they redacted the advice from civil servants to ministers [in documents submitted to the committee]. We felt this made it very difficult for us to make an objective judgement. We were not happy with the way that they responded to the Burundi report, either.

Usually, however, the department’s responses to us are fairly constructive and they comment or qualify in a very systematic manner.

How effectively is the department achieving its objectives in terms of policy implementation and organisational reform?
Given that we’re not quite two years into the Parliament, I think that they have put the coalition government’s stamp on the department in a number of different ways. First of all, they have concluded what has genuinely been regarded as a fairly well-managed review of bilateral and multi-lateral aid and humanitarian support. This review wasn’t just useful in helping the department prioritise its spending, but also had international impact.
The department has galvanised its staff at all levels to think: what is our money buying and how can we demonstrate the outcomes? Their methodologies are open to question, but that is something they’re working on.

What are the priorities for your committee in 2012, and have you yet chosen a set of subjects to examine?
We’re just completing a report on South Sudan, then we’re embarking on a report about the role of the European Union as a development partner. We’re about to write a report on whether mineral exploitation improves tax yields in developing countries, with a case-study on Zambia; and while we’re on Zambia we’ll also look at Malawi, where the aid relationship has fallen apart. Later in the year, we’re likely to revisit Afghanistan, and subsequently Pakistan.

Stephen Dorrell
Health Committee
Conservative MP for Charnwood

How easy have you found it to call your chosen departmental witnesses, and how helpful and informative have you found witnesses during hearings?
I think that we have a good relationship with the Department of Health. They have said no to some things and yes to others, but most of the time I don’t think we’ve felt that any of their positions have been unreasonable.

How positively has the department responded to your reports, and how far has it implemented your proposals?
There are various instances where the select committee’s intervention has been more influential than the department would recognise. We issued a report in the spring of last year on health service commissioning, and many of the recommendations in that report were taken up by the NHS Futures Forum and ultimately by the government. We dramatised the efficiency challenge in the health service as the Nicholson Challenge, and that’s the phrase that is quite widely used in the health service and indeed in some coverage of health service matters. That’s because the committee has consistently focused on that issue. The committee has also influenced the policy debate by focusing on the importance of the role of the professional regulators [the General Medical Council and Nursing and Midwifery Council] in ensuring quality and standards in healthcare delivery.

How effectively is the department achieving its objectives in terms of policy implementation and organisational reform?
I have no complaints with the department’s and NHS managers’ implementation of policy.

Many of our reports expressed concern about the effectiveness of the health service in meeting its core objective, which is to deliver high-quality healthcare to patients who need it from within the resources available. It’s a monumental and, you could argue, unprecedented management challenge. We’ve repeatedly expressed concerns that delivery of that challenge is in danger of being prejudiced by a political agenda that is too crowded, but that’s a political question.

What are the priorities for your committee in 2012, and have you yet chosen a set of subjects to examine?
We have just published a report on social care and will follow it up with further work. We’re also engaged in a review of education and training. We will be discussing our future programme as a committee, but the whole essence of what we’re trying to do is engage in the current debates about the evolution of health and social care policy.

Louise Ellman
Transport Committee
Labour and Co-operative MP for Liverpool Riverside

How easy have you found it to call your chosen departmental witnesses, and how helpful and informative have you found witnesses during hearings?
In most cases people come without being pressurised. We did have a concern when we conducted our coastguard inquiry. We had been told that we could call coastguard witnesses, but then a restriction was put on that. However, we did find another way of getting the necessary information.
Generally, we get a reasonable response from witnesses and they are forthcoming. People who have been challenged find it more difficult to answer than people who are there to give information about a topic.

How positively has the department responded to your reports, and how far has it implemented your proposals?
The department has mostly responded in a reasonable way. You have to have a longer time-frame to assess implementation but with the coastguard inquiry, for example, we were pleased that the government abandoned the idea of daylight-only stations – although while they reduced the number of closures, a number of stations still closed. We felt that the government had listened to the major points we made, but we still feel concerned about the closures taking place.

On the report on motor insurance, the government has started to act, and that topic includes other departments as well as transport. The Ministry of Justice was involved, looking at referral fees and cold-calling. We can’t make an assessment of their responses yet.

How effectively is the department achieving its objectives in terms of policy implementation and organisational reform?
We haven’t looked in detail at size reductions. We did look at high-speed rail; it’s a very long-term project and we’re generally supportive, but there are major concerns that need to be addressed. One is that it’s important that there’s continuing investment in the existing railway, the classic lines, and we identified the northern hub [new rail tracks in the north of England] as a specific project that we’re concerned about. The test of that will be when the HLOS [high-level output specification, the department’s plans for improvements to the railways] is produced in July. Then we’ll see if the northern hub is included in full.

What are the priorities for your committee in 2012, and have you yet chosen a set of subjects to examine?
We’re currently looking at road safety, which is a very important issue. We have been looking at buses, and will be returning to that. Motor insurance is also a very important issue, and we’re still reviewing that. Rail is a major priority, and aviation is another area that we expect to be looking at in a strategic manner.

Anne McIntosh
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Conservative MP for Thirsk and Malton

How easy have you found it to call your chosen departmental witnesses, and how helpful and informative have you found witnesses during hearings?
Since the general election the committee on environment, food and rural affairs has been quite busy, and naturally that means any difficulties in securing witnesses on a required date puts pressure on our whole programme of work. In general, the department has been willing to provide officials to give evidence, but from time to time we have had difficulty securing a minister, and particularly the secretary of state, to come and give oral evidence when we’ve asked. The quality of evidence has also been variable.

Giving evidence to a select committee at the start of a new administration is bound to throw up difficulties as ministers familiarise themselves with what may be a new brief, become accustomed to ministerial life or begin to review and amend policy. Politicians are thought to be adept at not answering the question. As a committee composed mainly of new MPs, we also have had to find our feet – and have had to become more adept at asking the right question.

How positively has the department responded to your reports, and how far has it implemented your proposals?
Our main outputs are reports to which the government is required to respond. We probably receive around the same rate of positive responses to recommendations as do other select committees. However, much of our work relates to the European Union, and so while the government may accept our conclusions on an issue, it may not be in its gift to implement them. In those cases our reports are more about influencing the position that the government should take in negotiations, rather than setting out a programme of activities it should undertake.

How effectively is the department achieving its objectives in terms of policy implementation and organisational reform?
We regularly quiz the secretary of state and permanent secretary on the department’s objectives and administration. We continue to put pressure on the department to improve its delivery and management practices.

What are the priorities for your committee in 2012, and have you yet chosen a set of subjects to examine?
In 2012 the committee is looking at the Natural Environment white paper, as well as continuing to look at reducing the regulatory burden on farmers. The main themes for this year are likely to be the continuing battles with Brussels over reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy. The other priority for us will be looking at the government’s proposals for the water industry. We try to be light on our feet and keep abreast of developments across Defra’s range of responsibilities, so there are certain to be many other subjects presenting themselves for scrutiny over the course of the year, and there is never enough time to do all that we would wish.

Richard Ottaway
Foreign Affairs Committee
Conservative MP for Croydon South

How easy have you found it to call your chosen departmental witnesses, and how helpful and informative have you found witnesses during hearings?
Since becoming chair of the foreign affairs committee in June 2010, my aim has been to steer the committee towards an even-handed assessment of what the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is doing: constructive criticism where necessary, and praise where merited. In return, I look to the department to support the committee in its work, being open and providing information.

I’d say that the Foreign Office generally meets its side of the bargain. There is not the mutual distrust which has sometimes characterised the relationship between departments and their respective select committees. The foreign secretary has obliged in giving oral evidence when requested, and ministers take care to write to the committee, through me, on important developments. That is welcome. There will always be questions which ministers would rather not answer; but the committee has shown that it can be very persistent when it suspects evasion.

How positively has the department responded to your reports, and how far has it implemented your proposals?
We would not be realists if we expected the department to agree with every single one of the recommendations we made. However, the department has shown that it is prepared to listen: it considered our argument on proposed funding cuts for the BBC World Service, and agreed to revisit the decision and provide additional funding. Too often in the past, government departments have relied upon stock arguments in defence of the status quo, without really taking the trouble to weigh up the pros and cons afresh.

How effectively is the department achieving its objectives in terms of policy implementation and organisation reform?
The FCO, like all government departments, is going through a period of reshaping. We have yet to learn how the FCO will manage the reduction in its programme budget, and the effects of the ‘network shift’ [refocusing FCO resources from traditional to emerging powers] are not yet clear.

What are the priorities for your committee in 2012, and have you yet chosen a set of subjects to examine?
Organisational change in the FCO is going to colour all our work in this Parliament, whether we are looking at institutional change in the European Union or flashpoints in the Middle East. Many more hard decisions lie ahead.

Keith Vaz
Home Affairs Committee
Labour MP for Leicester East

How easy have you found it to call your chosen departmental witnesses, and how helpful and informative have you found witnesses during hearings?
The committee has not found the Home Office particularly responsive to its requests for witness and information. We continue to be disappointed with the delay of UK Border Agency responses and their refusal to provide the committee with certain pieces of information. There have also been one or two occasions where the home secretary has blocked the appearance of witnesses we have requested, notably Lord Wasserman, the government’s adviser on policing and criminal justice.

How positively has the department responded to your reports, and how far has it implemented your proposals?
The government has in the past taken longer than the usual three months to respond to our reports. For example, the government response to our report on firearms controls took eight months to arrive, and that was only after the committee called the policing minister to come before it.

We have continued to monitor the progress in implementing our report recommendations and to revisit reports on an annual basis. This has included developing a pioneering tracking grid using a ‘traffic light’ system which classifies recommendations as green (accepted), amber (partly accepted or a commitment to further consideration), or red (rejected).

We have already had an impact on the implementation of the government’s far-reaching police reforms, such as securing a more gradual approach to the phasing-out of the National Police Improvement Agency and, more recently, amending its implementation of the Policing Protocol.

How effectively is the department achieving its objectives in terms of policy implementation and organisational reform?
The Home Office has a challenging business plan to deliver during this Parliament, against a background of significant cost savings. Early legislation has paved the way for the major reforms, but we believe the implementation of these changes has been slow and often delayed.

What are the priorities for your committee in 2012, and have you yet chosen a set of subjects to examine?
The agenda of the Home Affairs Committee is always crowded. However, the past year was by any standards exceptional. From phone hacking to the riots in August, and from the roots of radicalisation to border security, the committee was at the forefront of home affairs developments.

For the coming year we have already begun major inquiries into drugs and the regulation of private investigators. We also aim to hold inquiries into leadership and standards in the police service, cybercrime, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and the arrangements for dealing with asylum-seekers.

Alongside this we will continue to regularly scrutinise the work of the permanent secretary through our bi-annual reports, and the work of the UK Border Agency through tri-annual evidence sessions with its chief executive.

John Whittingdale
Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Conservative MP for Maldon

How easy have you found it to call your chosen departmental witnesses, and how helpful and informative have you found witnesses during hearings?
The committee calls upon the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to address an ever widening range of issues. Ministers and officials have consistently proved willing to give both written and oral evidence and have demonstrated great versatility in answering questions on topics veering from the very technical (such as spectrum [the bandwidths used for transmitting information such as radio and mobile phone signals]) through the more routine (the department’s annual report and accounts) to the very contentious (football governance). Witnesses giving oral evidence have tended either to be very well briefed or thoroughly familiar with their portfolio and have followed up punctually with written answers to further questions.

The department has demonstrated flexibility in response to the committee’s programme of work – for example, by bringing forward the publication of its post-legislative assessment on the effectiveness of the Gambling Act 2005 so that the committee could take account of it as part of its post-legislative scrutiny inquiry.

How positively has the department responded to your reports, and how far has it implemented your proposals?
Government responses to the committee’s reports have tended to be positive in tone – particularly the response to the committee’s report on football governance, for example.

It is difficult to assess how many of the committee’s recommendations have been implemented by the government, because a significant proportion of them have been addressed to other public bodies, such as the BBC, Channel 4 and the Arts Council. The committee’s forthcoming report on the Gambling Act 2005 should provide an opportunity to gauge more accurately the extent to which its recommendations are implemented rather than merely endorsed.

How effectively is the department achieving its objectives in terms of policy implementation and organisational reform?
The committee has expressed concern about the impact of the department’s challenging savings targets on arts organisations such as the UK Film Council, which is an important source of revenue for the British film industry, and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.

What are the priorities for your committee in 2012, and have you yet chosen a set of subjects to examine?
The committee has launched inquiries into the closure of local libraries and media plurality. These will take the committee up to the summer recess.

Tim Yeo
Energy and Climate Change Committee
Conservative MP for Suffolk South

How easy have you found it to call your chosen departmental witnesses, and how helpful and informative have you found witnesses during hearings?
Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) ministers make themselves available to the committee to give evidence and are generally forthcoming. The committee is not shy of pushing ministers and officials to get to the bottom of the department’s analysis, or the way information is presented.

While ministers stick to the expected departmental line at the start of an evidence session, the committee has become increasingly adept at drawing the ministers out on specific issues, so that a genuine dialogue can be struck up and policy questions explored.

As examples, I’d cite the committee’s questioning of ministers on the government’s impact assessment for changes to feed-in tariffs for solar photovoltaic panels, or joint evidence from DECC and environment department ministers on their respective perspectives on consumption-based emissions reporting.

How positively has the department responded to your reports, and how far has it implemented your proposals?
The department responds thoroughly to the committee’s reports, addressing each recommendation. However, it does not always address the conclusions of the report holistically. This seemingly piecemeal approach gives the impression that the parts of DECC that deal with ‘energy’ and ‘climate change’, or ‘technology’ and ‘behaviour’, are not as integrated as they could be.

The department has both accepted and rejected committee recommendations. The committee will follow up its conclusions and proposals, particularly in areas such as electricity market reform, maintaining a watching brief as policy evolves.

The committee also has an active engagement with the regulator and the six largest energy companies, and in particular has exerted influence to help bring an end to energy mis-selling on the doorstep.

How effectively is the department achieving its objectives in terms of policy implementation and organisational reform?
To date DECC has been very effective in terms of policy implementation, having to fight many battles against both the Treasury and the cabinet more broadly. I hope that this will continue under the leadership of a new secretary of state.

On organisational reform, DECC has some commendable accomplishments. It has an Office of Nuclear Development [established in 2009], and is in the middle of launching a much-needed office for CCS [carbon capture and storage]. But it has some way to go to align national/international, energy security/climate change, and economics/technology policies.

What are the priorities for your committee in 2012, and have you yet chosen a set of subjects to examine?
The theme of energy market reform will remain a priority for the committee. We await with interest further details of the Energy Bill that is expected in the next parliamentary session.

The committee has just launched an inquiry examining how consumers engage with energy markets, and has recently considered DECC’s technical notes on the future role of the National Grid in delivering reform.

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