Three high-profile Labour MPs, Chuka Umunna, Caroline Flint and Yvette Cooper, are to battle it out to replace Keith Vaz as chair of the home affairs select committee.
There is stiff competition to head the influential committee after Vaz resigned following Sunday newspaper allegations that he had paid male escorts.
Friends of Cooper, the former shadow home secretary, confirmed she was considering a bid for the position. Umunna, who is a member of the committee, has also put his name forward.
Flint, who was a Home Office minister in the last Labour government and stood for the deputy leadership, announced her intention to stand on Wednesday night.
“The resignation of Keith Vaz is a tragedy for Keith and his family, but his work as chair of the home affairs select committee has been widely praised,” she said.
“This committee now requires an experienced, independent-minded chair to take its work forward.”
The new chair will grapple with key upcoming reports, including antisemitism, female genital mutilation, hate crime and the controversy over the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.
The trio, all former frontbenchers, are among several senior Labour figures who lack confidence in Jeremy Corbyn and are seeking other senior roles in parliament or elsewhere with the expectation that he is likely to win the upcoming leadership election.
Other ambitious Labour MPs have decided their future may lie outside Westminster. Andy Burnham, the shadow home secretary, has said he will step down from his frontbench role before he seeks election as mayor of Greater Manchester.
The former shadow mental health minister Luciana Berger stood for mayor of Liverpool but was not selected locally for the candidacy, which went to Steve Rotheram, Corbyn’s parliamentary private secretary.
The new chair will be elected by a secret ballot of MPs over the coming weeks, with the Conservative MP Tim Loughton serving as interim chair. Chairs of most select committees are elected by a secret ballot rather than chosen by each committee.
Labour has the chairmanship of home affairs, with chairs of the departmental select committees reflecting the party balance in the House of Commons. That formula is determined by the Speaker shortly after a general election.
