I was delighted to be elected Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee. This is a really exciting role and one which will provide the opportunity to put a lot of important issues on the agenda.

I am hugely grateful to all of the colleagues who gave me their support.

The Committee is made up of backbench MPs from different parties, who will be meeting twice a week to ask questions of government ministers, conduct inquiries into key issues and explore the big challenges facing the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy going forward.

Over the next Parliament, I hope to build on brilliant work done by the previous Chair, Iain Wright, to hold ministers and business leaders to account, and make sure that the voices of MPs from all parties are heard on these important issues.

My own priorities are to use the role to:

– Get the best industrial strategy that works for all regions of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
– Develop sustainable growth and climate change policies that help create new and well paid jobs
– Look at the future of work, including the huge growth of self-employment and insecure work
– Shine a spotlight on diversity at the top levels of our businesses and tackle the gender, disability and BAME pay gaps
– Help ensure an environment of responsible business
– Get the Committee out of Westminster, to visit local enterprise partnerships, businesses and workplaces across the UK

This is a really exciting brief that will address a lot of the big challenges facing the country, from insecure work, to regional inequality, to climate change. Over the next few years, with a minority government, Parliament will be really important and I am determined that the BEIS Select Committee will play its part.