THE House of Commons is in recess so I will take this opportunity of telling you about the Parliamentary Health Select Committee.

There are 16 departmental select committees and although these have no executive power they can affect Government policy by conducting in-depth inquiries into selected topics.

These inquiries give members a chance to question witnesses, including ministers, and they can generate wide publicity.

At the first meeting of the Health Select Committee, David Hinchliffe, Labour MP for Wakefield, was elected as chairman.

He is well-known for his uncompromising stance against the Government's proposals for the abolition of Community Health Councils.

The first event is the annual review of Department of Health expenditure and Alan Milburn, Secretary of State for Health, will face the committee on October 17.

The first major inquiry for the committee will be "The Role of the Private Sector in the NHS".

This will specifically focus on the NHS concordat with the private and voluntary sectors, the Private Finance Initiative and public/private partnerships.

Again we will have a chance to grill the Secretary of State for Health on October 24 and further witnesses later. At the conclusion of this session I asked a number of parliamentary written questions.

The first was to ask for details of other local councils that had refused planning permission for the development of waste burning incinerators. The answer to this was completely unhelpful because the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions said they did not have this information.

A more useful answer came from the Department of Health, when I asked them about the plans for making health authorities and trusts provide the money for treatments passed as effective by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.

The answer here was quite clear that health authorities will be directed to fund such drugs and treatments.

I also asked if the executives of the Worcestershire Health Authority had received performance-related pay increases since 1998 and was interested to learn that no such pay increases had been paid.

Surprisingly, the Department of Health was unable to tell me the cost of the local health representatives' visit to America to study ambulatory care, even though a press release from the health authority has told us the cost of this was £25,000. Other answers are awaited.