The Government has split the work of the Education and Employment Select Committee to secure senior appointments for Margaret Hodge, Labour MP for Dagenham, and Derek Foster, who quit as public services minister after only three days, writes Geraldine Hackett.
The Education Select Committee will be chaired by Mrs Hodge while Mr Foster, the former chief whip for Labour, will head the employment committee.
The sub-groups have yet to decide whether further education and lifelong learning are the preserve of education or employment.
Apart from Mrs Hodge, the only Labour survivor from the previous Conservative-dominated select committee is Gerry Steinberg, who resigned from the back-bench education committee in protest at Harriet Harman sending her son to a grant-maintained grammar.
The other Labour members are: Candy Atherton; Charlotte Atkins; Joe Benton; Yvette Cooper; Judy Mallaber; Valerie Davey; John Healey and Caroline Flint.
The Tories are: Eleanor Laing, adviser to former education secretary John MacGregor; Theresa May; Graham Brady and Nick St Aubyn. Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat education spokesman, stays on the committee. The Plaid Cymru MP is Cynog Dafis.
