Never underestimate the importance of a select committee

When I was first cutting my teeth in public affairs I remember when Royal Mail, or The Post Office Group as it was then known, was hauled in front of various select committees four times in the space of 12 months of my working in their Government Affairs team. From the Welsh Affairs, to Public Accounts, to the then Trade and Industry committee it was as if parliamentarians couldn’t get enough evidence as to how the company was operating.

The old adage of if you fail to prepare you should prepare to fail is certainly one that rings true. Though even with adequate preparation, if your Chief Executive decides to disregard advice you can end up on the front page of every national newspaper as was the case of The Post Office when they equated financial losses to 30,000 potential job losses in what had started to be an innocuous line of questioning.

More recently Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of Vote Leave irked Andrew Tyrie the Chair of the Treasury committee so much so, that the first seven minutes of the evidence session was spent lambasting his perceived snubbing of the committee and demanding an apology.

Not every pit-fall can always be avoided, but good preparation can really help in making your case during committee inquiries.

If you want to know more about how to go about giving evidence to a Select Committee and might be interested in our Select Committee training programme just get in touch.