Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for what reason the role of the Chair of the National Council of Lay Observers is not remunerated; and if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of remunerating that role in line with the level of remuneration provided to the Chair of the National Board of the Independent Monitoring Boards.

The Government’s assessment is that it does not currently have statutory authority to remunerate the role of the Chair of the National Council of Lay Observers. The department has considered the merits of remunerating this role and, when parliamentary time allows, our intention remains to introduce a statutory framework to combine the Independent Monitoring Boards’ Management Board and Lay Observers’ National Council into a single Board under a single, remunerated Chair. The intention is to recognise both the unified Board and the Chair role in legislation.