The Business of the Committee

This is Natascha Engel our local MP in North East Derbyshire. Soon after the General Election, the Commons established its first ever Backbench Business Committee and Natascha was elected in a ballot by MPs from both sides of the House to serve as Chair of the new Committee. Towards the end of the last Parliament a vigorous debate took place in the Commons as to whether such a Committee should be established and, if so, what its make-up and powers should be. In December, Natascha addressed our Discussion Meeting on the issue. As a consequence, over the following three months we ran a series of items on the matters involved which can be found here, here, here and here. Natascha has written an article on the role and workings of the new Committee which is published today in the MPs' own journal "The House Magazine". This is a crucial update on an issue which our discussion group has carefully been following. The purpose of this present item is to provide a link to her own key update. It can be found here. On the 18th of November 2010 she also made a speech on the issue shown in this video.