The Justice Committee - a case for legal aid

The House of Commons departmental Select Committees elected in the summer have now had several months to get to grips with their remits. Sufficient differences have opened up in their track records to allow some evidence-based judgments to be made about their relative effectiveness. Some curious discrepancies are apparent, the Justice Committee being a case in point.

The Justice Committee is chaired by Sir Alan Beith, a very experienced Parliamentarian, Chair of the Liaison Committee and with more than seven years' experience on the Justice Committee itself. Like many other Commons Committees since the General Election, its membership is generally less experienced, but it includes some of the more impressive of the 2010 intake of MPs, such as Claire Perry. Why then has it not been more effective?

The Committee has launched no less than seven inquiries but so far produced only two minor reports (compare seven reports produced by the Treasury Committee, for example). Many of its hearings have seemed unfocused, without a clear link to any of these inquiries, or else covering a range of questions which relate to several different inquiries. In spite of the fact that there are a number of barristers on the Committee, members often seem to pull their punches in questioning (Elfyn Llwyd being an honourable exception). Alan Beith manages the agenda very tidily and with the greater ease because all the members are so well-behaved, but he does not seem to be succeeding in giving the Committee a sense of purpose or direction.

It's all a bit disappointing. There are signs, however, that the Committee intends to make a real contribution in relation to the current Green Paper on reform of legal aid. We shall see whether they can do so convincingly.