When things threaten to go awry it can help us learn how they work. So, how do Select Committees decide to amend bills, who helps them; and how do they track amendments and communicate with the legal drafters?
Earlier this month in Parliament the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee sent a report back to the House with an unprecedented extra.
The committee put on record their concern that - and I am paraphrasing - some of the drafting instructions for the committee's amendments to the Water Services Legislation Bill had not been what they expected. Some unidentified official had either made a huge mistake or taken it into their head that they knew better than the MPs.
It got me wondering how a committee does this. By what process do they decide what changes a bill needs and how do they track those decisions? To find out I sat down with asked the chair of the committee that caught the runaway bill, Labour MP Ingrid Leary.
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The 'natural tension': Parliament v government
"What happened a few weeks ago, to my mind is an example of the system working," says Ingrid Leary.
In understanding what happens it's worth understanding that select committees are a creature of Parliament, while ministerial advisors are a part of government. They work for a government department or ministry. For any new piece of legislation, ministry advisors and officials are part of the engine that determines how to turn a policy into law. They stay involved when that bill reaches a select committee.
Leary acknowledges this tension. Being an MP from a governing party does not alter her identity as a part of parliament and not of government. 'Government' is only the ministers, not their colleague MPs.
"By their nature, there's a bit of tension between the select committee process and the government or executive process, as should be. Because after all, Parliament is the one that holds government to account and the government is accountable to Parliament."
Processes and Advice
"When a bill comes to select committee, usually what happens first, is there is an introduction to the bill, often with a set of slides made by the officials from the department presenting it, to give an overview to MPs about what the bill entails, what it's intending to do, how it works, and so on. Then the committee can decide, if it's quite a technical bill, for example, that it would like to also get an independent adviser."…