BEING a select committee chairman is one of the most responsible jobs in parliament and can lead to some interesting situations.

You need cunning, the patience of Job and the diplomatic skills to keep a bunch of MPs from different parties working together and to get agreement between them.

The job is even more difficult when, like me, you chair a new select committee which is breaking new ground and working in a different way to engage the public.

When we announced our first inquiry, one Government minister told me I couldn’t do it.

Those who know me will guess that my response was fairly robust.

When we have scheduled debates on issues like the junior doctors’ dispute, pensions for women born in the 1950s or the removal of bursaries for student nurses, Government ministers have fumed and tutted. They haven’t liked being called to answer.

I doubt many of them liked our report on the treatment of brain tumours which said that this awful disease has been neglected by successive governments.

I know they didn’t like us enquiring into whether the meningitis B vaccine should be extended.

Yet here’s the thing. They aren’t meant to like it. The purpose of scrutiny is to challenge the powerful and make them uncomfortable.

Whether it’s a Government minister being told he’s got it wrong or a council portfolio holder being told to think again, scrutiny is meant to be a robust process. Anyone who can’t defend their decisions when called to account should think about whether those decisions were the right ones.

That’s why I am very uncomfortable with the recent decision by the borough council to restrict scrutiny committee members from participating in ‘call-ins’. I am even more uncomfortable with reports that any criticism of the council will be closed down.

Proper scrutiny improves decision-making and knowing you will face scrutiny helps to get decisions right in the first place. It’s an essential part of democracy and even more important now decisions are taken by an executive board rather than committees of councillors.

My message to decision makers is simple – life’s tough! Perhaps you shouldn’t be a decision maker if you can’t stomach scrutiny.