Meet Abbas

As he gets ready for his first election in the Commons Library, we talk to researcher Abbas Panjwani about the work he’s been doing on Research In Brief, a publication to help new MPs get the facts when they arrive in Parliament.

Hi Abbas – tell us about your role in the Commons Library!

I am a researcher in the business and transport team and I specialise in the financial sector and competition. That involves responding to MPs’ requests, which largely relate to tricky constituency casework issues. Covering the financial sector, there are constituents who experience difficulties with their finances and these cases can be very complex, so I provide expertise to help. I also get questions on the most niche things you can imagine! Things like how laundromats get insurance or how credit unions get funded. Where information isn’t widely available on a niche topic, I will talk to people in the industry and provide MPs with that insight because it’s not available elsewhere.

The other side of my role is writing briefings to help MPs fulfil their legislative role, so in the past year I briefed on the Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Bill and the Building Societies Act (Amendment) Bill, providing MPs with impartial information to help them scrutinise new legislation.

How long have you been part of the Commons Library?

I joined the Commons Library from the fact-checking charity Full Fact last year and I initially started in the Economic Policy Statistics team. Then a role came up to take on the financial services brief with the business and transport team, which I started in winter. So this is my first election working in Parliament.

What’s it been like working on your first general election?

Working in the Commons Library during the election is pretty unique. You notice a big change in the Library, especially because you’re working with people who really know and care about the institution and parliamentary procedure. I think that makes the atmosphere a bit more exciting.

It’s also an opportunity to work on non business as usual projects. So I’ve been working on Research In Brief, which is one of the Library’s publications for new MPs. It includes a series of explainers that are designed to bring MPs up to date with the issues facing the 2024 Parliament and it showcases the range of work the Library does.

As part of the coordination team for the publication, I’ve been overseeing the graphics, making sure that the charts, tables, and diagrams are all consistent, and I’ve written an explainer about what sort of assistance we can provide to support constituency casework. We know that some MPs are not aware at first that the Library can help them help their constituents, so we want to show what common requests we can help with.

Sounds like a big job! What have been some of the challenges?

We didn’t expect the election to be called as early as it did, but we were prepared. The main challenge is to think about what MPs are going to need or find useful in the new Parliament. With this publication, we’ve given Library researchers a chance to think about what might interest MPs and what they will need to be informed on.

We’re aware that in the Library, we are just one of the sources of information available to MPs and our usefulness isn’t in reiterating what has already been well covered. Instead, we recognise the sorts of questions we’re being asked and what information we should make accessible to help MPs serve the public and Parliament.