UK parliamentary select committees: crowdsourcing for evidence-based policy or grandstanding?

In the United Kingdom, the influence of parliamentary select committees on policy depends substantially on the ‘seriousness’ with which they approach the task of gathering and evaluating a wide range of evidence and producing reports and recommendations based on it. However, select committees are often charged with being concerned with ‘political theatre’ and ‘grandstanding’ rather than producing evidence-based policy recommendations. This study, based on a survey of 919 ‘discretionary’ witnesses, including those submitting written and oral evidence, examines the case for arguing that there is political bias and grandstanding in the way select committees go about selecting witnesses, interrogating them and using their evidence to put reports together. While the research finds some evidence of such ‘grandstanding’ it does not appear to be strong enough to suggest that the role of select committees is compromised as a crowdsourcer of evidence.