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Legal Aid

Before I kick off, I declare an interest: before entering Parliament, I was a solicitor and the firm that I co-founded did a lot of publicly funded work. The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) alluded to the all-party group on Citizens Advice, of which I am a chair. The Minister was the first chair of that group, and it would be churlish not to pay tribute to her for the work that she has undertaken in turning up to our meeting this week and having an honest and candid discussion with parliamentarians and for the tour of the country that she has undertaken since becoming a Minister, during which she has spoken to those with an interest and expertise in this subject. She has also made changes to the proposals first set out in the Carter review in November. My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) is right: there is a synergy between this discussion and that in the Chamber, which is where I was before coming here. To answer a question put by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham), there are similar numbers of Members in both debates. When this debate kicked off, three Conservative Back Benchers were present, and there are four in the Chamber for the debate on social exclusion. I have received, as I am sure other Members have, massive representations about the future of legal aid from the advice sector, consumer representatives, practitioner groups and, of course, constituents. I accept that the legal aid system is in need of reform, particularly in high-cost criminal cases. However, there is a danger that, rather than paying attention to that aspect of legal aid, the proposed changes could lead to experts in law firms and law firms themselves, law centres and the not-for-profit sector ceasing the sort of work to which Members have referred. Such work is necessary, if for no other reason, so that we can provide a place to go for those who turn up with their carrier bags. A point also needs to be made about access to justice. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister spent her career before entering Parliament committed to and—dare I say it?—obsessed with access to justice. There is a danger that the proposals could have unintended consequences and lead to a reduction in such access. I accept that the intention is not to save costs overall; she said that reform would be needed, even if no savings would be made as a consequence. I shall deal with private practice and the not-for-profit sector. On private practice, my hon. and learned Friend knows that the Law Society welcomed the Carter review and said that there has long been a need for an overhaul because the current system falls far short of providing access to justice and tackling social exclusion. So she has allies in the Law Society, as well as in many other groups. I am afraid that, with a finite budget, if expenditure on criminal legal aid increases, the amount of money left for civil and family legal aid will come under increasing pressure. High-cost criminal cases should have been the target of most of the changes, particularly in relation to the Bar—the Minister might lose a lot of friends if she agrees with that. We know from the press and questions answered in Parliament the cost of some criminal QCs to legal aid expenditure. Some cases, such as those for fraud, have a disproportionate impact on the legal aid budget—the cost is humungous. I suspect that, if we reduced the money taken up by that small number of cases, a huge sum would be released to a large number of clients, the not-for-profit sector and private practices, which would help more vulnerable people. Huge savings could also be made in experts’ fees, including disbursements, which is a problem and leads to conflicts when practitioners choose experts. My hon. and learned Friend has alluded to and tried to deal with my concerns about ethnic minority practitioners and clients. I urge her strongly to keep an eye on that because I am concerned about it. The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) referred to another concern: where tomorrow’s legal aid lawyers will come from. That is a real concern for a number of law centres and private practices. My hon. and learned Friend needs to think about that because the motivations that she and I had when beginning such work will not survive if law centres cease to practice in certain areas, and private practices cease publicly funded work, even though there are noble people today willing to do such work. As has been referred to by Members, it is important to disentangle practitioners and lawyers who undertake publicly funded work from the sort of lawyers who, rightly, get flack in the media for the huge, gravy train fees that they charge. On the not-for-profit sector, I know that my hon. and learned Friend has taken on board all the concerns that have been expressed by citizens advice bureaux and law centres up and down the country. Today, she received a letter from the chief executive of the CAB, which welcomed some of the reassurances that she gave on Monday at the meeting of the all-party group. The five areas of concern, which remain, relate to fixed fees, payment structures, fee arrangements for multiple-issue cases, outreach services and London waiting, which has been alluded to by colleagues. I shall not repeat those comments because that letter is in front of her. In conclusion, the intentions of the Government and my hon. and learned Friend are laudable. However, some of the unintended consequences of the changes outlined will be devastating to some constituents, particularly those in deprived areas such as the constituencies represented by myself and by colleagues present. There is a real danger that, by not providing legal aid and advice at an earlier stage, more costs will be incurred in the long run, whether in debt, immigration or social welfare cases. The stakeholder monitoring body, to which the hon. Member for Banbury referred, will need to ensure that it is beefed up, that it reports sooner rather than later and that it takes into account any consequences that were not predicted, so that we do not face a situation in which lawyers and practitioners leave that area of law and so that, in six years’ time, we do not have to pump more money in to try to recruit more people, because others have left owing to the changes that we have announced.