§ Lord Alton of Liverpoolasked Her Majesty's Government:
What use they have made of private sector lawyers since May 1997 (or for the part of that period for 84WA which figures are available) for assistance in (a) drafting legislation, and (b) litigation; on what basis such lawyers are remunerated; and whether such remuneration is set at a rate below what would be regarded by the courts as reasonable for solicitors undertaking publicly funded civil legal aid work. [HL746]
§ The Attorney-General (Lord Williams of Mostyn)(a) The Government's primary legislation is mainly drafted by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel. Exceptions are the consolidation and law reform Bills drafted by the Law Commission and the work on rewriting tax legislation being done by the Inland Revenue's Tax Law Rewrite project. In these cases, the drafting is done by Counsel on secondment from the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel. The legislation for Scotland relating to reserved matters (including such elements of consolidation and law reform Bills for the Scottish Law Commission) is drafted by Counsel on secondment from the Office of the Scottish Parliamentary Counsel in Edinburgh. Some Government Bills extending only to Northern Ireland are drafted by the Office of the Legislative Counsel in Belfast by arrangement with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel.
Since May 1997, a total of four private sector lawyers have been employed at various times to assist with the drafting of legislation being prepared by the OPC or by the Inland Revenue Rewrite project. All four had acquired the necessary skills when they were members of the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, before moving into private practice. Their remuneration has varied depending on the amount and difficulty of the work they were contracted to do, but generally speaking has been commensurate with the cost to Government of similar work being done by Parliamentary Counsel. Meaningful comparisons between the remuneration of drafting and for civil legal aid work are not possible because of their different natures.
Some departments employ private sector lawyers from time to time to draft secondary legislation. However, no central records are kept of the volume of work involved, of the number of private sector lawyers who have been employed nor of their remuneration. This information could only be assembled at disproportionate cost.
(b) Litigation for the Government is handled, almost entirely, by Treasury Solicitor or, where departments supply their own legal services, by the in-house litigation teams within those departments. For geographical or other reasons, however, private sector lawyers frequently become involved in government litigation (including public inquiries) as agents. Generally speaking, solicitors from the private sector instructed in this way as agents are remunerated in a manner broadly comparable to the manner in which they would be remunerated for private client work. Rates will vary accordingly to the location and type of litigation work involved. No statistics are available as to the number of litigation cases in which private 85WA sector lawyers have been instructed or of the fees paid, and it would not be practicable to provide such information without examining many thousands of individual files.