Labour MP Diana Johnson elected as home affairs select committee chair

Diana Johnson has been elected as the chair of the home affairs select committee, replacing Yvette Cooper who was recently made Shadow Home Secretary in a reshuffle of the Labour frontbench.

A total of 315 votes were cast in the race, which involved two rounds under the alternative vote system used. There were 286 valid votes in the second round, excluding ballots with exhausted preferences. The quota to be reached was 140 votes, and Johnson was elected with 154.

Only Labour MPs were eligible for the role, but all MPs could vote. Nominations opened in early December, closing on the 14th, with each candidate requiring 15 signatures from MPs from their own party to be nominated.

Three candidates reached the ballot: Johnson; Rupa Huq, the Ealing Central and Acton MP who placed second, and Yasmin Qureshi, the Bolton South East and shadow minister who was third.

Johnson, who had already been an existing and active member of the home affairs select committee, is best known for her parliamentary work on the contaminated blood scandal and on abortion rights.

She has served as a Labour MP for Hull for more than 15 years and held several frontbench positions in the home affairs, foreign affairs and health teams. She was named backbencher of the year in 2018 for her work to secure a public inquiry into the NHS contaminated blood scandal.

When she received a damehood for her charitable and political service earlier this month, Johnson declared that she will continue to fight for victims of the scandal once the inquiry has concluded.

Johnson will now head up the cross-party committee that is responsible for scrutinising the work of the Home Office and looking at policy and spending on areas including immigration, security and policing.

The particular focus of the committee currently is violence against women and girls, but the chair should also be across issues such as Windrush and asylum-seeking routes to the UK, among others.

Cooper replaced Nick Thomas-Symonds as Labour’s home affairs spokesperson earlier this month amid a wider reshuffle of his shadow cabinet that also saw top roles given to Wes Streeting, Bridget Phillipson and David Lammy.