Hancock Pulls Out Of Treasury Select Committee Race

Former Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock has withdrawn from the race to be the next chair of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee (TSC), leaving four names in the contest to take over the leadership of the influential fiscal oversight body.

• This leaves four MPs (all Conservatives) in the running: former Secretary of State for Education Kit Malthouse, former Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom, MP for Basildon and Billericay John Baron, and former Economic Secretary to the Treasury Harriet Baldwin.
• The TSC is able to question senior economic figures including the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Governor of the Bank of England on a fairly regular basis, meaning their evidence sessions can be market-moving events.
• As such, a TSC chair that is not friendly to the current gov't (notably Boris Johnson ally Kit Malthouse) could give a trickier questioning session to Treasury ministers than someone seen as more in line with PM Rishi Sunak's gov't (John Baron was an early Sunak backer).