Select Committees

This week Parliament's House held just a tiny remnant of MPs. So where were the rest of them, what were they doing, and who was working harder?  Audio

How do you have a Parliament without a debating chamber? Go small and go virtual. This week five select committees will question ministers on TV. Audio

For three weeks the Epidemic Response Committee has been grilling Ministers and Officials on their response to Covid-19 but how much power do they actually have? Audio

Parliament’s select committees are surprisingly open and public, but when they go dark to work on outcomes they are meant to stay pitch black. Audio

Making laws is a slow process which can be frustrating but watching it unfold can demonstrate why sprinting through minefields is not recommended.  Audio

Parliament is the forum for public debate, but you can’t wander into the debating chamber and join the MPs in random discussion. You can get pretty close though. Audio

In last week’s kerfuffle over a Select Committee, our constitution apparently changed. Unless people were very wrong.

The House speaks to first-term MPs before and after a few months on select committees to find out if it meets their expectations.  Audio

The number of MPs who will sit on select committees has been reduced, but the Leader of the House, Labour's Chris Hipkins, says all political parties agreed to it in the last Parliament. Video, Audio