Dunwoody ridicules move to dismantle Transport watchdog

Gwyneth Dunwoody, the Labour arch-critic of Government transport policies, condemned moves to muzzle her outspoken backbench committee yesterday.

Party whips are plotting to break up the Transport, Local Government and the Regions select committee and pack its replacement with "on-message" backbenchers.

The committee chaired by Mrs Dunwoody has lambasted ministers over its handling of the Railtrack administration and the part-privatisation of the London Underground. Its scathing report into the 10-year transport plan is widely believed to have dealt a fatal blow to Stephen Byers as Secretary of State for Transport.

Mrs Dunwoody told Radio 4's PM programme: "As far as one can see, they seem to be quite terrified of our ability to express our opinions clearly."

Predicting an attempt to put "more compliant" MPs on the new-look committee, she said: "I'm afraid the Government may regard this as an excuse to change the membership, not because it thinks we aren't doing a good job, but because it thinks we are."

Mrs Dunwoody added: "I have to say, history tells us this is a Government that, even with one of the largest majorities, seems to be more worried about people who criticise them than those who go through the lobbies quietly."

Speaking in the Commons earlier, she told MPs: "If we are now dissolved, and we no longer exist, then, frankly, that will be a great loss in my own view. And if it is replaced by a committee, which perhaps is slightly more amenable, I shall not be surprised.

"But I shall say simply that the House of Commons works best when it has sufficient confidence in its own members to ask difficult questions of any elected government, to wait for the replies and then to use that as the basis of the reports."

Robin Cook, the Leader of the Commons, confirmed that the committee would vanish in its current form because of the Whitehall shake-up triggered by Mr Byers' resignation.

The committee shadowing the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions, with sub-committees for transport and urban affairs, will be replaced by two new committees. One will scrutinise the Department of Transport, while the other will monitor the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, which has assumed responsibility for local government and the regions.

Mr Cook told MPs: "It is a cardinal principle of our departmental select committee system that the committees should track the departments in Whitehall.

"It is therefore necessary we should put the Transport, Local Government and the Regions committee on the same footing as the department that now exists in Whitehall. I am sure when we do so, we will do so in way that ensures continuity of scrutiny of the department."

Mr Cook dodged questions over plotting by the Labour whips to neuter the committee by packing it with loyalists. "It is not for me to decide the chairmen. It is for the House to decide members of the committee, I am very grateful to say, thank heavens," he said.

Last year the Government had to back down over an attempt to replace Mrs Dunwoody in the face of backbench opposition.

Mr Cook said he would introduce a Government motion to alter the select committee structure before the summer recess.