The twelve members of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee have been announced.
As was previously announced in September, Welsh Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi will chair the committee.
She will be joined by six of her Labour Party colleagues – the largest on the committee.
Three MPs from Northern Ireland have been confirmed to sit on the committee – DUP leader Gavin Robinson, the SDLP leader Claire Hanna and Alliance‘s Sorcha Eastwood.
The remaining three seats will be taken by two Conservatives and a Liberal Democrat.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) had two seats on the committee in the last parliament, but as they lost three seats in the general election, they will only get one this time round.
The News Letter confirmed that the Conservatives gave the DUP a seat out of their allocation.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Lab)
The chair of the committee will be Tonia Antoniazzi MP. She was first elected to Parliament in 2017 and represents Gower in Wales.
In 2021 she was appointed as a Shadow Minister for Northern Ireland and worked as a Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Smith from 2017 until 2018.
She resigned as a frontbencher in 2018 with five other Labour MPs in protest at her party’s position on Brexit – she voted in favour of joining the European Economic Area (EEA).
Dan Aldridge (Lab)
Aldridge was elected to the House of Commons in this year’s general election and represents Weston-super-Mare.
Before entering politics he was Head of Policy at the British Computer Society and previously worked for Stonewall.
Chris Bloore (Lab)
Another newcomer to politics, Bloore was also elected earlier this year.
He previously was a member of Worcestershire County Council, but resigned in 2017 and moved to Canada where he worked as the CEO of a provincial tourism trade association.
Leigh Ingham (Lab)
A common theme across the committee, Ingham is another newcomer to the House of Commons, elected in the general election this year.
She did serve as a councillor in South Gloucestershire between 2023 and 2024 and was Labour’s deputy leader on the council.
When elected she overturned a Conservative majority of over 14,000 votes.
Adam Jogee (Lab)
Before being elected to the House of Commons this year, Jogee served as a councillor in London and served as Mayor of Haringey in 2020.
He represents the Newcastle-under-Lyme constituency for Labour and was elected with a majority of over 5,000 votes.
Katrina Murray (Lab)
Katrina Murray was also elected this year as a new Labour MP.
However, she did contest the 2010 general election in Dundee East but was beaten by the SNP.
She represents the Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch constituency in Scotland.
David Smith (Lab)
The final Labour MP on the committee, David Smith, was also elected earlier this year. Every Labour MP on the committee is new to the House of Commons, except the chair – Tonia Antoniazzi.
He is the Chief Executive of Oasis Community Housing, a homelessness charity in Gateshead.
He represents North Northumberland in the House of Commons.
Alicia Kearns (Con)
Kearns was first elected in 2019 and represents Rutland and Stamford for the Conservatives in Parliament.
In October 2022, she was elected Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee – the first woman to ever hold the role and the youngest ever female chair of a committee.
She now serves as a Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Jerome Mayhew (Con)
Mayhew was elected to Parliament in 2019 to represent Broadland and Fakenham.
He previously served on the Environmental Audit Committee and is now a Shadow Minister for Business and Trade.
Before entering politics he worked as a director of an adventure park company, and then as its Managing Director.
Dr Al Pinkerton (LD)
Dr Pinkerton was elected this year as the Liberal Democrat MP for Surrey Heath. He stood for election in 2019 but was defeated by Michael Gove – the former Conservative minister.
In September he was announced as the Liberal Democrat’s spokesperson for Northern Ireland.
Gavin Robinson (DUP)
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Gavin Robinson will be his party’s sole representative on the committee.
In the last parliament, the DUP got two seats on the committee, but with unionism split across three parties and an independent, he was given a seat by the Conservatives out of their allocation.
He has been the MP for Belfast East since 2015 and served as the Lord Mayor of Belfast before that.
Claire Hanna (SDLP)
Claire Hanna currently serves as leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).
She was first elected as an MP in 2019 and served in the Northern Ireland Assembly from 2015, and as a Belfast City councillor from 2011.
Hanna served on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the last sitting of parliament.
Sorcha Eastwood (AP)
The third MP representing Northern Ireland is Alliance’s Sorcha Eastwood.
She was elected to the House of Commons earlier this year, taking Lagan Valley from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
Before that, she served in the Northern Ireland Assembly from 2022 and as a councillor on Lisburn and Castlereagh Council from 2019.
Note: This article was updated on 31 October 2024 to reflect the change in membership of the committee.
