MPs confirmed for BIS and science committees

MPs have been appointed to the select committees that scrutinise the department responsible for higher education and the government’s science policy.

Appointments to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee and the Science and Technology Committee have now been confirmed, following the results of elections among MPs.

The respective chairs of the committees – Labour’s Iain Wright and the Conservatives’ Nicola Blackwood – had previously been confirmed.

Paul Blomfield, the Labour MP for Sheffield Central, who has campaigned on a number of higher education issues, remains a member of the BIS committee. Mr Blomfield has backed Universities UK on its calls for international students to be removed from the government’s net migration targets.

Mr Wright, Mr Blomfield and new MPs Jo Stevens and Peter Kyle make up the Labour contingent on the BIS committee.

The Conservative members are Richard Fuller, Amanda Milling, Amanda Solloway, Kelly Tolhurst (who won a high-profile contest against Ukip’s Mark Reckless to reclaim the seat of Rochester and Strood for the Tories at the last election), Craig Tracey and Chris White.

Michelle Thomson is the SNP member on the committee.

On the Science and Technology Committee, which “exists to ensure that government policy and decision-making are based on good scientific and engineering advice and evidence”, members include the Tories’ Tania Mathias, who unseated Vince Cable in Twickenham at the last election.

Dr Mathias is a medical doctor who says on her website that she formerly worked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the Gaza Strip and treated HIV, Aids and TB patients in Africa.

Her Conservative colleagues on the committee are Ms Blackwood, Victoria Borwick, Chris Green, Derek Thomas and Matt Warman, formerly the technology editor of the Daily Telegraph.

Labour members include Daniel Zeichner, the Cambridge MP who unseated University of Cambridge academic Julian Huppert at the last election. His Labour colleagues are Jim Dowd, Liz McInnes and Graham Stringer.

Carol Monaghan is the SNP member on the committee.

john.morgan@tesglobal.com