The MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth has served on the committee for eight years, and has also held the position of shadow work and pensions secretary.
Abrahams, MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, has been a member of the committee for eight years and won the nomination after a ballot in parliament yesterday (11 September).
Announcing her bid for the role last month, Abrahams posted on social media that she intended to “ensure firm and fair scrutiny of government policy, and continue an evidence-based cross-party approach to the committee’s work”.
She beat competition from fellow Labour MPs Neil Coyle and David Pinto-Duschinsky to lead the committee, according to parliamentary documents.
The other members of the committee have yet to be announced, but nominations are expected in the next few weeks now that parliament has returned from its summer recess.
Abrahams was first elected to parliament in 2010, and served as the shadow minister for work and pensions, and later the shadow secretary, between 2015 and 2018.
Her predecessor in the chair, Sir Stephen Timms, is now a minister of state in the Department for Work and Pensions.
Elsewhere, Dame Meg Hillier was elected unopposed as chair of the Treasury Select Committee. She is also a Labour MP, having represented Hackney South and Shoreditch since 2005.
Hillier previously chaired the Public Accounts Committee between 2015 and 2024.
The Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee will be chaired by Labour’s Florence Eshalomi, the MP for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green. She served as the shadow minister for this department from September last year until parliament was dissolved at the end of May.
