BEFORE the recess I was re-elected as chair of the petitions select committee and had hoped to get the committee up and running before Parliament rose for the summer but it was not to be.

Instead, I, like other select committee chairs, have been waiting with growing impatience.

The reason is simple: the Government is refusing to nominate members to select committees and, until it does, committees cannot begin work.

Not only has it failed to nominate members but it has not even set up the committee of selection, which has to approve the names put forward for approval by the whole house.

So why the delay? It seems that the Government wants to avoid scrutiny of its actions. Select committees, although their work is often not reported, are one of the most powerful means of scrutinising government policy and holding ministers to account. They can bring the most powerful to heel.

One former ambassador was given such a hard time by a committee on which I served that the Foreign Office used the film to train its staff for years afterwards.

Transport ministers used to quake at the thought of having to appear before Gwyneth Dunwoody.

The reason committees are effective is that their members build up expertise, generally work by consensus and are not constrained by party whips. It is a very serious matter to try to interfere in a select committee.

When my committee decided to investigate the lack of research into brain tumours, for example, one minister told me the Government did not want me to do this.

My reply was, “I do not serve the Government, I serve the House,” and she backed off very quickly.

In the case of the petitions committee, the delay means that the public cannot submit e-petitions because the site cannot re-open until the committee is set up.

Many people who have important issues to raise are being denied the opportunity.

All this is bad for democracy as well as being bad for the relationship between people and their Parliament.

Scrutiny, whether in parliament or in councils, is an essential part of the democratic process and those who try to prevent that scrutiny are doing democracy a disservice.

It’s time for the Government to allow select committees to get on with their work.