Select committees currently accepting written evidence (compiled 26 February 2025)

Please click the title of any inquiry listed below to be taken to a summary of that inquiry and the full call for evidence. Remember that you don’t have to answer every question posed in each call for evidence.

New calls for evidence:

All other inquiries currently accepting written evidence:

Why should I engage? Submitting evidence to a select committee can lead to further engagement, such as an invitation to give oral evidence. Your submission will be published on the committee webpage. Your insights may inform the committee’s conclusions or the recommendations it makes to the government. Find out more about why to engage with Parliament. You can also read more on engagement for impact.

More information: Explore all select committee inquiries currently open for submissions of written evidence. 

Resources: Find guidance on submitting evidence to select committees on the KEU’s ‘how to guides’ page. Watch our 30 minute online training session “How to work with select committees”

Engage: Share your research to contribute to new POSTnotes

POST, the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, is calling for research contributions and information relevant to the upcoming briefings below.

The deadline to submit a contribution to the role of public engagement in improving trust in parliamentary systems and scrutiny POSTbrief is 3 March 2025.

  • Birthrate decline: This POSTnote aims to summarise research evidence and stakeholder perspectives around the declining birthrate, and its potential impacts. The POSTnote is likely to focus on the impacts of a declining birthrate, together with an ageing population, on specific areas of the workforce, provision of services (such as education), and wider social and economic impacts. The POSTnote may also consider available evidence about the impacts of birthrate decline from international contexts. 

The deadline to submit a contribution to the Birthrate decline POSTnote is 21 March 2025.

  • Barriers to digital transformation projects in government: this POSTnote will give an overview of the typical life cycle of government digital transformation projects and common delivery approaches (such as Agile). It will look at the factors that can undermine projects’ success and potential approaches for addressing them. It will also consider case-studies in the UK and internationally, and where parliamentary scrutiny of such projects may be most effectively focused.

The deadline to submit a contribution to the Barriers to digital projects in government  POSTnote is 21 March 2025.

  • STEM skills pipeline: this POSTnote will identify technical skills, such as data analysis, programming, engineering design, and laboratory techniques that may be important in addressing the UK’s challenges, such as climate change, healthcare innovation, and digital transformation. It will also look at workforce issues that may affect delivery, which are reported to include movement of trained workers abroad, shortages of trained workers in particular fields, and movement of workers away from STEM jobs over time. 

The deadline to submit a contribution to the STEM skills pipeline POSTnote is 21 March 2025. 

Updated guidance: contributing your research to POSTnotes and briefings

The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) have simplified and updated its guidance for researchers to share their expertise and provide contributions to POST’s work, such as POSTnotes and briefings for parliamentarians.

Researchers can feed into POST research projects by following the instructions on the contributing to POST research as an expert webpage. Researchers need only submit:

  • Their name.
  • A link to their online research/expert profile.
  • A personal statement (maximum 250 words) describing:
    • your relevant skills, experience and knowledge,
    • key issues relevant to the project that you would like to make us aware of.
  • Links to papers, publications, or blogs you have written that are relevant to the project topic, where available. Please link to open access sources if you can.

Please familiarise yourself with the new guidance before submitting your contribution to the new POST projects.  

Reminder: your contributions can be emailed to post@parliament.uk until the deadlines stated above. 

Why should I engage? POSTnotes are used by Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords and UK Parliament staff to navigate complex research. Contributing to a POSTnote is a good way of feeding your expertise into the UK Parliament as part of a trusted, impartial publication.

All contributors are acknowledged when the POSTnote is published. On publication, you and your organisation’s communications team will be notified to publicise the POSTnote and your contribution. Therefore your contribution can help raise your profile and promote your research. 

More information

Reminders

  • The House of Lords Social Mobility Special Inquiry Committee is considering how educational and work opportunities could be better integrated to improve social mobility in the UK. They are calling for researchers and experts whose discipline covers social mobility in its broadest sense to make themselves known to the committee. Please complete this form to make yourself, and your research, known to the committee. The deadline to respond is Friday 28 February 2025.

And you thought French lessons were a complete waste of time… 

Parliament has been called ‘Parliament’ for nearly a millennium, and comes from the French word ‘Parlement’. For those of you who did French at school, you might recognise this as sounding a bit like the word ‘parler’, which is probably what your teachers encouraged you to do in your lessons (as long as you did it in French): it means ‘to talk’.  

So what? 
If you tune in to Parliament TV, or watch any footage from the Chambers, the main thing you’ll see is people talking.  

Where do they get the words from that form their speeches and contributions?

All sorts of places. 

MPs have staff whose role includes putting briefing material together for them. They can also access the research service of their own political party, and the House of Commons research service (Library and POST). Alongside that, they are constantly bombarded with information from the media. And if that wasn’t enough, they have lots of people vying for their time and attention; each with their own aims and motives.

So who in Parliament is going to care about your voice against that noisy backdrop?

Your local MP should.  

Your local MP has been elected in your constituency to be your voice in Parliament, so make sure you contribute to giving them the words to say.  

How?  

By getting in touch with them, asking for a meeting, building a relationship, then exploring the various ways for your MP to share your words in Parliament. These could include: