David Maddox: Holyrood can learn lesson from Westminster on public scrutiny

BBC Radio Four presenter John Humphreys may have dealt the final blow, but the now former Director General of the BBC, George Entwistle, was a dead man walking following his calamitous appearance before the Commons’ culture, media and sport select committee last month.

The brutal dismantling of Entwistle, particularly by the Tory MP Philip Davies who reduced the room to mocking laughter, has helped rehabilitate the committee system which had been subject to ridicule recently.

The culture committee’s split on party political grounds over the phone hacking report and Treasury committee’s failure to get anything from former Barclays’ chief executive Bob Diamond over the Libor scandal undermined confidence in committees.

According to critics, the select committees were too party political; MPs had their questions written for them and were unable to do follow-up questions, and generally, witnesses such as Diamond and the Murdochs were given too easy a time.

Yet the humiliation of Entwistle, the way the Treasury committee tore into Chancellor George Osborne over the Budget, and virtually all the reports from the public accounts and defence committees have shown they can be very effective.

The weaknesses still exist, but their great strength is a culture that they should be free of the bonds of party politics. The best chairs of committees – Keith Vaz on home affairs, Andrew Tyrie on the Treasury, James Arbuthnot on defence, and Margaret Hodge on public accounts are willing to criticise their own side and work with MPs of all parties.

The best committees – Treasury, defence and public accounts – have produced scathing reports about government policy despite having a majority of coalition MPs.

While Westminster’s committee system is not perfect and relies heavily on the willingness of MPs to rise above party politics, it highlights what a major weakness exists at Holyrood.

Without a second revising chamber the Scottish Parliament relies even more heavily on its committee system, and yet they appear to lack any kind of independence from the party whips.

This reached low points in the last parliament with the local government committee Trump inquiry into Alex Salmond and the Standards Committee inquiry into former Labour leader Wendy Alexander.

After those inquiries, former Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott called for major reform of the committee system in Holyrood, but things have got worse since the SNP government majority ensured that it also has whipped majorities on the committees.

The effectiveness of Scotland’s political institutions has not yet become an issue in the referendum debate, but Holyrood needs to show it is a proper scrutinising parliament if the case for independence is to be won.