THE TOOTHLESS WATCHDOGS...

DAVID Cameron’s honours list will be scrutinised by the Parliamentary and Political Service Honours Committee.

However, it has little power to block his nominations. The committee can do no more than raise an issue of propriety about a potential candidate.

Set up in 2012, it comprises a majority of independent members and the chief whips of the major parties.

But its powers apply only to the New Year and Birthday Honours. Prime Minister’s Resignation and Dissolution Honours lists are not subject to the same scrutiny. A source close to the process said: ‘It is very unsatisfactory.’

The seven committee members are:

RT HON THE LORD SPICER

The chairman of the committee, he chaired the Tory Party’s 1922 Committee until 2010 when he was made Baron Spicer of Cropthorne in the County of Worcestershire.

The former MP for West Worcestershire attended Wellington College and Cambridge before becoming a finance journalist at the Daily Mail. In Parliament he worked at the Department of Trade and was later made deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.

Now 73, he was caught up in the expenses scandal after spending £7,000 on gardening, including hedge trimming for his helipad.

RT HON ROSIE WINTERTON MP DBE

The Labour chief whip and MP for Doncaster was a member of the very committee which recommended she be made a dame. The former shadow leader of the Commons, local government minister and work and pensions minister was caught up in the MPs’ expenses row after using taxpayers’ cash to soundproof the bedroom of her South London flat. She also claimed £ 6,000 over four years in additional costs, close to the total allowed.

She worked with John Prescott throughout her career and ran his office when he became deputy Labour leader. Now 57, she attended private school then Hull University.

DIANNE BEVAN

A lawyer by training, she attracted controversy after being paid double the going redundancy rate when leaving her role as chief operating officer for the National Assembly for Wales. She now works for a political consultancy and is a board member for a housing association.

She has an MA in public administration and public sector leadership from Cardiff Uni- versity. The 57-year-old previously worked as an adviser for the Northern Ireland Assembly as well as a children’s charity and Cardiff County Council.

RT HON THE BARONESS HAYMAN GBE

She was the first ever Lord Speaker, the youngest ever MP – for which she was nicknamed ‘baby of the House’ – and the first woman to breastfeed in Westminster. The daughter of a dentist from Wolverhampton, Baroness Hayman rose to become president of the Cambridge Union Society.

She was Labour MP for Welwyn and Hatfield in the 1970s and made a dame in 2012. The former chairman of Cancer Research, 67, is married with four sons and serves on various medical ethics committees concerning euthanasia and fertilisation.

THE LORD LISVANE KCB DL

He quit as Clerk of the Commons in 2014 after allegedly being sworn at by Speaker John Bercow. Made a peer after David Cameron personally nominated him, the former University Challenge captain, 66, read Old Norse, medieval Welsh and Anglo-Saxon at Oxford.

A church organist who is married to a female priest, he also wrote the textbook How Parliament Works. He was made Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 2013 and given the title Baron Lisvane, of Blakemere in the County of Herefordshire and of Lisvane in the City and County of Cardiff in 2014.

RT HON THE LORD BUTLER OF BROCKWELL KG GCB CVO

The former head of the civil service and Margaret Thatcher’s private secretary, Lord Butler was nearly killed in the 19 4 IRA Brighton bombing.

Now 7 , he sits in the Lords and is married with three children. He was head boy at Harrow, then went to Oxford. He served as private secretary to five prime ministers. In 2004 he chaired the Butler Review into the evidence for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

RT HON GAVIN WILLIAMSON MP

The Tory chief whip and parliamentary secretary to the Treasury was appointed only last month and is yet to attend a committee meeting. He replaced Mark Harper, who lost his job in Theresa May’s reshuffle.

The MP for South Staffordshire is 40 and is married to a former primary school teacher and has two children. He attended Bradford University and used to work in the Staffordshire pottery industry.