Activities and the promotion of
public engagement
3. The main Committee held 43 meetings in 2007, and
the Sub-Committee met on 12 occasions. Table 1 in the Annex lists
all subjects covered in oral evidence. The Committee published
a total of 15 Reports during the year, a significant increase
on preceding years which reflected the Committee's intense level
of activity for much of the year.[2]
Further statistical and financial information about the Committee's
work in Session 2006-07 will be contained in the Sessional Return.[3]
4. The Liaison Committee has rightly drawn attention
to the role which select committees can play in engaging with
the public and the media.[4]
In 2007, we have taken a number of steps to enhance public engagement
with our work, including the following:
- holding a highly topical inquiry
into Private equity, hearings for which attracted extremely large
public turnouts, as well as wider media and public interest, illustrated
by the fact that a webcast of an evidence session was accessed
over 2,000 times on the day of the meeting;[5]
- opening to the public an informal meeting which
the Committee, together with the International Development Committee,
held with Mr Rodrigo de Rato, the then Managing Director of the
International Monetary Fund; and
- launching an inquiry into Financial Stability
and Transparency and holding the initial hearing for that inquiry
during the Summer recess, a swift response which was noted by
the Deputy Leader of the House in a debate on the duration of
the Summer Recess.[6]
5. The Committee has become central to the urgent
public debate following the run on Northern Rock. As the crisis
at Northern Rock and the wider problems of credit markets have
unfolded, the Committee has demonstrated that select committees
play a unique role both in ensuring the public accountability
of key participants in an unfolding crisis and in serving as the
most important forum in which possible reforms are mooted and
considered. The high profile of the inquiry has meant that the
Committee has received, through e-mails, letter and press articles,
a high level of feedback about issues raised during evidence sessions
and matters that can be pursued in subsequent hearings. Evidence
taken by the Committee has also frequently been cited in debates
on the floor of the House relating to Northern Rock,[7]
demonstrating that the contribution of the work of select committees
to that of the Chamber is by no means limited to committee reports.
Visits
6. Evidence taken at Westminster is usefully complemented
by information gathered in the course of visits, which can play
a crucial role in our consideration of policy options. In 2007:
- Our visit to the Republic of
Ireland in February provided us with many insights into legislation
relating to Unclaimed assets in the financial system and informed
our subsequent recommendation that the Dormant accounts scheme
in the United Kingdom ought to have an element of compulsion;[8]
- Our visit to Canada and the United States of
America in May enabled us to learn more about the monetary policy
framework in those two countries and specifically informed conclusions
relating to the mandate of the Monetary Policy Committee of the
Bank of England and to the frequency of meetings of that Committee;[9]
- Our visit to Sweden in November enabled us to
talk to senior officials in the Riksbank—the Swedish central
bank—and the Ministry of Finance with direct experience
of handling a major banking crisis, providing insights which have
informed our subsequent and continuing work on Financial Stability
and Transparency.
7. To maximise the value of our visits, we have made
it a regular practice to hold meetings which relate to subjects
other than the main topic of inquiry. Thus, for example:
- during our visit to Ireland,
we held discussions relating to financial inclusion and incentives
to save, which was the subject of a follow-up inquiry later in
the year,[10] online
filing of tax returns, a topic of continuing interest to the Sub-Committee,
and population statistics, which will be the subject of a Sub-Committee
inquiry starting early in 2008;
- in the course of our visit to Canada and the
United States of America, we discussed the impact of globalisation,
informing our subsequent Report on that subject,[11]
the current state of the US economy, including the risks associated
with sub-prime mortgage lending and complex financial instruments—discussions
which have proved highly relevant to our ongoing work on Financial
Stability and Transparency—as well as holding an invaluable
meeting with Statistics Canada about the Canadian census; and
- while in Sweden to examine financial stability
issues, we also held discussions with the Riksbank and with the
Finance Committee of the Swedish Parliament about monetary policy
and oversight of it and learnt more about the Swedish approach
to population registration during a meeting with Statistics Sweden
in advance of the Sub-Committee's inquiry into Counting the Population.
8. Visits can often help to shape a subsequent inquiry.
In June, the Chairman and another member of the Committee visited
Plymouth and Fowey to assist with subsequent decisions about the
scope of an inquiry into Customs and borders that was due to start
later in 2007, but has been postponed in view of the Committee's
work on Financial Stability and Transparency. A full list of the
visits undertaken by the Committee and its Sub-Committee in 2007
is contained in Table 2 in the Annex. The Chairman also visited
Member States holding the Presidency of the European Union to
attend meetings of budgetary or financial committees of the Member
States. These informed our understanding of European taxation
issues and the continuing debate about the future funding of the
European Union.[12] The
Committee also held a range of informal meetings at Westminster
with Finance Committees from Portugal, Ghana and Kazakhstan.
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