The Parliamentary Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee has been fully reappointed, following the committee’s reformation after the 2024 General Election. As new members of the committee were nominated in Parliamentary Motions in the past few weeks, only two members who sat on the committee before the election – Dame Caroline Dinenage (Conservative, Gosport) and Dr Rupa Huq (Labour, Ealing Central & Acton) – have been returned for the new Parliament.
The new committee consists of seven Labour Party members, two Conservatives and two Liberal Democrats, a seismic shift from proportions during the last Parliament, with six Conservatives, four Labour and one Scottish National Party (SNP) MP. Of the members of the new committee, eight of them are new MPs, having been elected in July, most of which being from the Labour Party. Joining Dinenage and Huq are Bayo Alaba (Labour, Southend East & Rochford), Mims Davies (Conservative, East Grinstead & Uckfield), Zoë Franklin (Liberal Democrat, Guildford), James Frith (Labour, Bury North), Natasha Irons (Labour, Croydon East), Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat, Eastleigh), Jo Platt (Labour, Leigh & Atherton), Tom Rutland (Labour, East Worthing & Shoreham), and Paul Waugh (Labour, Rochdale).
Select Committees are groups of MPs tasked with scrutinising an area of government, topic or other issue. With a Select Committee for every government department and several others, each has members elected to match the overall proportion of party representation in the wider Parliament, hence the heavy Labour Party representation on each of these committees, and the lack of a Scottish National Party presence following the election.
Each Departmental Select Committee primarily scrutinises the work of their respective department, here the Department of Culture, Media & Sport, and its ministerial team as they carry out their work, as well as hearing evidence from key figures in these industries, and crafting reports on current affairs for the department and wider Parliament to consider. Recent reports from before the election produced by the committee include those looking into grassroots music venues and equity in cricket.
Chaired by Dame Caroline Dinenage, the Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee is one of only seven Select Committees now chaired by the Conservative Party, and one of only two departmental ones, the other being Home Affairs. She was re-elected to her role unopposed in September, and recently spoke to Forge Press about how “on every criteria that matters, the Culture, Media & Sport sectors have something vital to offer our nation”, as she begins her new tenure.
The successful motions on the Culture, Media & Sport Committee has formally established the committee for the first time since Dissolution in May, allowing the new members to begin their work. With all Parliamentary Select Committees now established, we await the beginning of their investigations, and their holding of Secretary of State Lisa Nandy (Labour, Wigan) and her new ministerial team to account.
All members of the Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee are available here
