The Education Select Committee is a select committee of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

in the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace ...

. The remit of the committee is to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the

Department for Education The Department for Education (DfE) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for child protection, child services, education in England, educati ...

and any associated public bodies. The chair of the committee until 2024 was Robin Walker MP. Previous chairs include

Robert Halfon Robert Henry Halfon (; born 22 March 1969) is a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politician and was the Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Harlow (UK Parliament constituency), Harlow from 2010 ...

MP (2017–2022), Neil Carmichael (2015–17) and Graham Stuart MP (2010–2015).

Current membership

On 5 September 2024, nominations for the role were opened with the candidates being Labour MPs

Sharon Hodgson Sharon Hodgson (born 1 April 1966) is a British politician who has served as Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Washington and Gateshead South since 2024, and previously for Washington and Sunderland West and G ...

, Marie Tidball and

Helen Hayes Helen Hayes MacArthur (; October 10, 1900 – March 17, 1993) was an American actress. Often referred to as the "First Lady of American Theatre", she was the second person and first woman to win EGOT, the EGOT (an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and ...

. Hayes was elected. The full membership as of 29 October 2024 is:

2019–2024 Parliament

The chair was elected on 27 January 2020, with the members of the committee being announced on 2 March 2020.

Changes 2019–2024

Occasionally, the House of Commons orders changes to be made in terms of membership of select committees, as proposed by the Committee of Selection. Such changes are shown below.

2017–2019 Parliament

The chair was elected on 12 July 2017, with the members of the committee being announced on 11 September 2017.

Changes 2017–2019

2015–2017 Parliament

The chair was elected on 18 June 2015, with members being announced on 6 July 2015.

Changes 2015–2017

2010–2015 Parliament

The chair was elected on 10 June 2010, with members being announced on 12 July 2010.

Changes 2010–2015

Publications

2017 - 2019 Parliament

2015-17 Parliament

Chair of the Education Select Committee

Election results

From June 2010 chairs of select committees have been directly elected by a secret ballot of the whole House of Commons using the

alternative vote Instant-runoff voting (IRV; ranked-choice voting (RCV), preferential voting, alternative vote) is a single-winner ranked voting election system where one or more eliminations are used to simulate runoff elections. When no candidate has a ...

system. Candidates with the fewest votes are eliminated and their votes redistributed until one remaining candidate has more than half of valid votes. Elections are held at the beginning of a parliament or in the event of a vacancy.

References

External links

Education CommitteeRecords for this Committee are held at the Parliamentary Archives
{{Chairs of the Education Select Committee Education policy in the United Kingdom Education regulation in the United Kingdom Select Committees of the British House of Commons