How effective are back bench MP's?

The idea that back bencher MP's are'nt effective has been widely debated. A back bencher MP is an Member of Parliament that doesn't have any status in the cabinet office but still can speak freely in Parliament.
One reason that back bench MP's are effective is the power of Select Committees. Due to the 2010 reforms, back bencher's were able to be elected as a select committee chairman which enabled them to feel responsible and have status. It also gave them oppotunity to hold government to account. Now select comitties hold high reputation for scrutinizing government as their efforts have been widely recognised. An example of this is in 2012 George Osborne put forward a 'Pasty - Tax' in his annual budget. This would mean taxing all hot baked goods. The Treasury Select Comittie, led by Andrew Tyrie, scrutinised this tax and becasue of that, George Osborne scrapped the inital plan, which shows the effectivness of back bench MP's/
However one reason that select comitties are not effective for backbench MP's is that they do not hold any presitgious powers. Thy=ey cannot dismiss any ministers and they also cannot defy their whip given to them. So because currently 361 conservative MP's there is a higher chance that a Conservative MP will be chairman of a select comittie, therefore there will be less scrutinsing as an MP cannot defy the whip.
Another reason back bench MP's are effective is the legasitive function of Parliament. This function is effective for back bench MP's because during the process of creating laws, the MP represents differet electroateswith diversity of people, communities, and economic and social interests. An example of this is 2009 coal mining law that was passed as different MP's have stronger poinions due to thier geographical location.
However the legislative function isnt very effective for MP's because they havent been able to pass it through indivudaly because of their lower status in comparrison to MP's in the cabinet.
Finally another reason for is the increased willingness for the whip to be defyed. An example of this was the July 2015 welfare reform where 48 Labour MP;s defied the whip and voted for the conservatives, including Dianne Abbot and Jermey Corbyn. Due to the huge scale of MP's who defied they whip on mulitiple occasions the party couldnt punish the MP's. Therefore this was a succsess for the Conservatives and a failure for Labour.
However there is still a high amount of whips put in place for legislation of high importances, not enabling them to voice their own opinion.
Overall I believe that due to the 2010 reform back bench MP's have become extremly more effetcive however due to the whip, i believe that more can be done to make the MP's more effective.