House of Lords: Domestic Committees

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I became aware of some of the difficulties of suggesting innovations about 24 years ago, when I put it to the Refreshment Committee that yoghurt should be available in some of our catering outlets. I considered it a victory when it appeared. I congratulate the committee and the chair on the report. I support the recommendations, many of them with much enthusiasm, although my experience of partners’ meetings and board meetings around a table is that one spends a disproportionate amount of time discussing what sort of biscuits one should have.

The terms of reference for the group included the effectiveness of domestic committee decision-making. This evening I will put down a marker for considering effectiveness in another part of the forest: legal services and shared legal services. Currently seven lawyers work in this House, two of them part time, and 13 work in the House of Commons. This is not about job creation for lawyers—although I declare an interest as a solicitor; my point is about effectiveness and efficiency.

The two Houses work towards the same ends, not in competition—mostly—but with a different focus. Although we try to complement one another, not to compete or duplicate, inevitably we consider many of the same issues. So it seems logical that, for instance, the same lawyers should advise when a House of Lords committee considers a Bill sent to us by the Commons. This is about value for money and the effectiveness of Parliament. Shared services in this area would probably also lead to the same amount of legal resource being more readily available to committees and Members across both Houses.

I have seen a submission on the issue by a staff member. I take the points made about assisting business planning within legal services by enabling a single unit to anticipate and co-ordinate provision, and about making it easier for a single unit to collaborate with other services, such as research. I do not know whether there are problems with the recruitment of lawyers—probably not—or with retention, which is possible, but this would contribute to a career structure for lawyers within both Houses and a workforce with a diversity of background and experience.

I do not for one moment suggest that Parliament’s lawyers do not co-operate with one another, or that there are not all sorts of issues that would need to be addressed, but I was surprised to learn that lawyers operate in discrete entities—I do not want to say “in silos”—and this part of our structure would be well worth looking at when the next opportunity arises.