Meeting of the Parliament 19 March 2026 [Draft]
The NGBU is a clerking team that is supported by Parliament’s lawyers and external drafters. It provides impartial and confidential support to members of Parliament who are not Government ministers who wish to take forward a proposal for a member’s bill. The unit provides support on a first-come, first-served basis. The corporate body seeks to ensure that, as far as possible, access to the NGBU is provided to members in an equitable way. However, the NGBU is a finite resource and it is also required to support committee bills, private bills and hybrid bills.
The staffing complement of the unit was increased by one member of staff at the beginning of the parliamentary session to reflect the high level of demand that was being experienced for NGBU support for the large number of members’ bills in the session.
As the member will know, NGBU’s procedural advice and guidance is provided impartially to any member. There are circumstances in which full support is neither provided nor needed. I can go into more detail on that if the member would like, but now I look forward to his supplementary question.