1st Report - Acting Select Committee Chairs

Key findings

• Eligibility for chair leave mirrors proxy voting criteria (parental leave, serious illness, injury, risk-based exclusion), assessed via identical processes to avoid duplication.
• Acting chairs must be committee members; for House-elected committees, should be from the incumbent's party unless compelling reasons exist; Opposition committees require Opposition members.
• Acting chairs automatically inherit all delegated powers and sit on the Liaison Committee, with both incumbent and acting chair receiving full/pro-rata salary respectively.
• Leave periods are continuous, minimum one month, maximum seven months, extendable only with Liaison Committee Chair approval and committee agreement; early termination requires five sitting days' notice.
• All appointments, extensions, and terminations must be reported to the House via Votes and Proceedings; committees may remove an acting chair by motion of no confidence under existing Standing Order procedures.

Recommendations

• Eligibility for chair leave should align with proxy voting criteria under Standing Order No. 39A.
• Leave periods must be continuous, lasting 1–7 months minimum–maximum, with extensions requiring Liaison Committee Chair and committee approval.
• Acting chairs may be previous chairs despite term limits; time as acting chair does not count towards term limits, but incumbent's leave period does.
• Acting chair must be a committee member; for House-elected committees, from the incumbent's party unless compelling reasons justify otherwise.
• For Opposition-chair committees (Standards, Public Accounts), acting chair must be from official Opposition or, if unavailable, another Opposition party.
• Backbench Business Committee acting chair must satisfy existing Standing Order restrictions (non-Government party, non-frontbench).
• Acting chair automatically inherits all delegated powers and sits on the Liaison Committee in place of the incumbent.
• Incumbent chair and acting chair should both be paid—incumbent at full salary, acting chair pro rata—from IPSA's existing budget.
• Chair must give five sitting days' written notice to appoint, extend, or terminate leave; same notice applies for early return.
• All chair leave, appointments, extensions, and terminations must be reported to the House and recorded in Votes and Proceedings.
• Committees may remove acting chairs by motion of no confidence (ten sitting days' notice, majority vote with cross-party support), per Standing Order 122C.
• Scheme applies only to the 32 select committees whose chairs receive IPSA salary; scheme duration limited to current Parliament pending review.

Key actors

Sir Alan Campbell, Paulette Hamilton, Layla Moran, James Rhys, Lee Bridges, Cat Smith, Dame Meg Hillier